
Class _ :lS 

Book .ff3 _ 



Copyright N°. 



, 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




ROBERT RAIKES RAYMOND. 



MELODY IN SPEECH 



A BOOK OF 



PRINCIPLE, PRECEPT, AND PRACTICE 



INFLECTION AND EMPHASIS. 



MY 



ROBERT R. RAYMOND, A.M., 

PRINCIPAL OF THE BOSTON SCHOOL OF ORATORY, AND FORMERLY PROFESSOR 

OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE 

BROOKLYN POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 



Edited and Published after his death, 
by R. W. Raymond. 



THIRD EDITION, INCLUDING AN ADDITIONAL TREATISE BY 
THE AUTHOR. 



NEW YORK, 
1906. 





LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooics Received 
JAN 16 1906 

CopyrijjM Entry . 

■%*L. 3./9d(, 

fUSS &- XXc, No. 

r / 3 6~66^(> 

COPY B. 








2^ 



Copyright, 1880, 

By ROBERT R. RAYMOND, 

and 1893, 1906, 

By ROSSITER W. RAYMOND. 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION TO THE 
THIRD EDITION. 



The second edition of this manual has been ex- 
hausted, without any corresponding cessation in the 
demand for it. This, I confess, has somewhat surprised 
me, not because I doubted the merits of my father's 
method, but because the little book (see p. 10) conveys 
that method only as to one part (though, perhaps, the 
most important part) of the subject covered by his in- 
struction. That a mere fragment should possess such 
vitality of usefulness, seems to me indeed remarkable. 

While I cannot undertake to perfect this fragment 
by adding an adequate summary of my father's treat- 
ment of the departments of li Dynamics," " Rate and 
Rhythm," and " Tone-Quality," I have included in this 
new edition his treatise on " The Voice in Elocution,'' 
now out of print, and also some personal reminiscences 
of his teaching, which may have suggestive, though not 
systematic, value. 

R. W. Raymond. 

Brooklyn, December, 1905. 



(1) 



EDITOK'S INTRODUCTION TO THE 
SECOND EDITION. 



The first edition of this little manual was printed by 
my father in 1880 for private use in his work at the 
Boston School of Oratory, of which he was then Prin- 
cipal. His intention was to perfect and enlarge it in 
the light of class-room experience, and only after this 
process should have been completed, to permit its 
actual publication. After his death, many memoranda 
for such a revision were found among his papers ; but 
it seemed impracticable for any other hand than his 
own to carry out the plan he had formed. 

Meanwhile, all remaining copies of the original pri- 
vate edition were eagerly purchased by his former 
pupils, who testified so warmly of the usefulness and 
value of the book in their work as teachers, as to in- 
duce, at last, the preparation of the present edition, for 
the purpose of meeting the continuing and earnest de- 
mand. 

In this edition, the changes of substance and arrange- 
ment indicated in my father's manuscript notes have 
been incorporated; and in accordance with his ex- 
pressed preference the examples for practice have been 
distributed, instead of being grouped together at the 
end. 

I have been indebted, for careful reading of proofs, 
for critical assistance and for valuable additional ma- 
terial to Miss Blandina Conant, a life-long friend and 
an intelligent pupil of my father. 

R. W-. Raymond. 

Brooklyn, Mav, 1893. 

(2) 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



The following treatise (if it may assume so preten- 
tious a name) is simply the result of a want felt by its 
author and compiler, in common with every teacher 
who has methods of his own, of a text-book which shall 
serve the daily uses of his school-room. Though prob- 
ably the precursor of a more comprehensive work, em- 
bracing the entire field of elocution, it deals with only 
a single department of the subject, but that — being at 
once fundamental and cardinal — the most important of 
all. For surely it can matter little to a fine delivery, 
whatever perfection of tone the voice may inherit by 
nature or attain to by art, whatever marvels of force or 
precision of utterance, nay, whatever refinements of 
feeling or intuitions of expression, may be present, if 
there be lacking a mastery of those vocal inflections by 
which Nature conveys the true sense of spoken passages, 
and that emphasis by which she defines the relative 
importance of associated words. 

The treatment of these subjects which is here pre- 
sented, lays no special claim to originality. There has 
been free use, 'in its construction, of all the material 
furnished by the thought and labor of others ; neverthe- 
less, it is the outcome of much experience in the trial 
of methods, and is believed to possess some resultant 
merits of its own. In particular, the presentation of 

(3) 



4 PREFA TOR Y NOTE. 

emphasis as a discriminating inflection merely, and as 
a waving slide rather than a downward pressure of the 
voice, to be marked by the grave accent, while it claims 
to be a true- statement of the natural fact, has proved 
the "best antidote to that stilted, artificial delivery 
which has always reflected discredit on the teaching of 
elocution. 

The little work has been, of necessity, produced in 
haste, and under the pressure of many and various 
duties. That the author is aware of its probable errors 
and obvious deficiencies appears in the fact that it is 
not given to the public, but merely thrown out as a 
first draft (so to speak), that it may be subjected to 
friendly criticism, and corrected and improved by 
further experiment and reflection. The discussion has 
been given with studied conciseness ; and it is hoped 
that the vindication of the principles here presented 
may be found in their statement. It is well, perhaps, 
to credit the pupil with some intelligence ; and whatever 
there lacks in this regard to the understanding of the 
text will have to be supplied by the teacher. For, 
however in other respects its promise may exceed its 
performance, one thing it certainly does not assume to 
furnish ; to wit, that very unlikely article, " Elocution 
without a Master." 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Editor's Introduction to the Third Edition, ... 1 

Editor's Introduction to the Second Edition, ... 2 

Prefatory Note to the First Edition .3 

Chapter I. Introductory . 9 

Chapter II. Upward Inflections — The Bend, ... 16 
Examples for Practice : 

Intermediate Pauses, 19 

Declaratives with Parts closely connected, for which the 

Bend is not required, 21 

Semi-Interrogative and Semi-Exclamatory sentences, in- 
volving the use of the Bend, 22 

Compact Sentences in which the Bend is used, ... 23 
Compact Sentences requiring the Bend, although the Cor- 
relative Terms are not both expressed, .... 25 
Compellatives delivered with the Bend, .... 27 
Compellatives with Falling Slide, as following strong Em- 
phasis, 27 

Compellatives with Falling Slide, because repeated in or- 
der to be heard, 28 

Compellatives repeated with Eising Slide, .... 28 

Parenthesis, delivered with the Bend, .... 28 

Indefinite Iuterrogatives in Parenthesis, .... 29 

Chapter III. Upward Inflections—The Eising Slide, . 30 

Examples for Practice : 

Definite Interrogatives with Eising Slide, .... 32 
Definite Iuterrogatives with Circumstance included in the 

Eising Slide, 34 

Definite Interrogatives, the length of which modifies, the 

Eising Slide, 34 

Several Definite Interrogatives requiring Successive Eising 

Slide, 36 

Definite Interrogatives, Slide reversed, .... 39 

Definite Interrogatives, Falling Slide, 39 

Definite Interrogatives, Series, 40 

(5) 



b TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter IV. Downward Inflections— The Falling Slide, 41 
Examples foe Practice : 

Indefiuite Interrogatives with Falling Slide, ... 44 
Indefinite Interrogatives, the length of which modifies the 

Falling Slide, 45 

Several Indefinite Interrogatives requiring Successive 

Falling Slide, 46 

Interrogatives with Or Disjunctive, 49 

Interrogatives with Or Conjunctive, . . . .50 

Chapter V. Downward Inflections— The Closes, . . 51 

Perfect Close, 51 

Partial Close, 52 

Examples for Practice : 

Declarative Sentences ending with the Perfect Close, . 53 

Declaratives, Waving Slide, 54 

Declaratives, Bend or Partial Close, 54 

Declaratives, Bend, 54 

Loose Sentences, given with the Partial and the Perfect 

Close, 55 

Loose Sentences, Gradual Fall, 55 

Semi-Interrogative and Semi-Exclamatory, Declarative 

Parts, given with the Partial Close, .... 57 

Parenthesis, Partial or Perfect Close, 59 

Chapter VI. Combined Inflections — Wave of Accent and 

Waving Slide, 60 

The Wave of Accent, 60 

The Waving Slide, 61 

Examples for Practice : 

Indirect Interrogatives, 62 

Indirect Interrogatives, Series, 63 

Indirect Interrogatives, Falling or Waving Slide, . . 64 

Exclamatory Sentences, Declarative, 64 

Exclamatory Sentences, Definite Interrogative, . . 65 
Exclamatory Sentences, Indefinite Interrogative, . . 66 
Exclamatory Sentences, Indirect Interrogative, . . 67 
Chapter VII. Combined Inflections— The Wave of Em- 
phasis, 67 

Concentration of Emphasis, 74 

Effect of Emphasis on other Inflections, .... 77 
Examples for Practice : 

The New Idea, 78 

Emphasis repeated, to intensify 79 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 7 

PAGE 

Examples for Practice ( Continued) : 

Mere Reiteration, 80 

Emphatic Wave, its limitations, 82 

Emphasis with Falling Slide at, or just preceding, Partial 

or Perfect Close, 82 

Strong Emphasis, Falling Slide, 83 

Emphasis denoting Comparison, . . . . . . .84 

Emphasis preceded by Intensive Particle, .... 85 

Concentration of Emphasis, Series; Emphasis deferred, . 86 
Concentration of Emphasis, Restrictive Expressions; Ad- 
juncts, 88 

Concentration of Emphasis, Restrictive Relative Clauses, . 88 

Concentration of Emphasis, Extended Logical Subject, . 89 

Concentration of Emphasis, Complicated Antithesis, . 90 

Chapter VIII. Graded Variations of Pitch, ... 91 

Examples for Practice : 

Graded Rise, increasing interest, 94 

Graded Rise, Solemnity and Sublimity, .... 97 

Graded Fall, Climax, ,99 

Graded Fall, Sentiment expressed, . . . . .99 

Parenthesis, 100 

Parenthetical Expression, 100 

Miscellaneous Examples for Rhetorical and Elocu- 
tionary Analysis, 102 

Appendix 1 115 

Class-Talk, 116 

Examples for Practice, with Notes and Comments given 
by Prof. Raymond to his Pupils : . 

Unwritten Music, 121 

The Battle of Blenheim, 125 

Each and All, 128 

A Greyport Legend, 131 

The Rising in 1776, 133 

Midnight Mass for the Dying Year 138 

Alexander's Feast, " . . 141 

HerveRiel, . . 147 

Appendix II. 

Essay on the Voice in Elocution, by Robert R. Ray- 
mond, 157 

Reminiscences of Prof. Raymond's Teaching, by the 

Editor, 178 



MELODY IN SPEECH. 



CHAPTEK I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Elocution teaches the effective expression of thought 
and feeling by voice and gesture. 

Oratory (which may be held for the purpose of this 
statement to include the art of the actor and the 
reader) presents three requirements, all essential, though 
contributory in different proportions, to its full perfec- 
tion. 

1. The speaker must be heard. Without this, the 
rest is useless. 

2. He must be understood. The hearer must receive 
the thought which his propositions are intended to 
convey. Without this, it can scarcely be said that he 
is heard. 

3. He must be felt. The hearer must be made to 
recognize the mood of passion, conviction, earnestness, 
mirth, etc., in which the proposition thus understood is 
advanced by the speaker. The aim of the orator may 
be to communicate his own state of mind, and to pro- 
duce a corresponding belief or purpose. The means of 
effecting this object, so far as they reside in effective 
utterance, belong to the art of Elocution. 

The mechanical department of this art comprises the 
culture of the voice, artistic respiration, articulation, 
pronunciation, gesture, and all the external conditions 
which conduce to effective expression. 

Intellectual elocution is the art of expressing thought 
and feeling effectively in the use of language. It may 

(9) 



10 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

be considered under three fundamental distinctions, 
viz. : — , 

(1) Of pitch (or high and low), treated under 
Melody ; (2) of force (or loud and soft), treated under 
Dynamics; (3) of time (or fast and slow), treated under 
Rate and Rhythm. To these may be added a fourth con- 
sideration, of Tone- Quality, having reference to the vari- 
ous coloring which the voice assumes to express dif- 
ferent kinds of emotion. 

Melody, to which this manual is confined, comprises 
inflection and emphasis. The latter, however, will be 
treated as essentially a branch of the general subject 
of inflection. They are here mentioned separately, in 
deference to the popular understanding (See Observa- 
tion 1, p. 69). 

Dynamics treats of stress, and (by the rule of oppo- 
sites) pauses and punctuation. 

Rate and Rhythm refer, — the former, to the positive 
degree of rapidity in utterance ; the latter, to that rela- 
tion of syllables to each other in respect to time, by 
which a measured and harmonious flow is given to 
spoken language. 

Tone-Quality includes a consideration of all vocal 
characteristics as intrinsically adapted to express emo- 
tion, and is particularly important in every form of 
dramatic personation. 

The following definitions of rhetorical terms used in 
this book are given for the practical convenience of 
students, and not as expressing a complete or peculiar 
grammatical system : 

I. A sentence is a combination of words expressing 
an idea completely ; as, " Truth is eternal." 

II. Every sentence consists of a subject and a pre- 
dicate. 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

The subject is that of which something is affirmed. 
In the above example, " Truth " is the subject. 

The predicate is that which is affirmed of the subject. 
In the example, " is eternal " is the predicate. 

III. There are two kinds of subjects, grammatical 
and logical. 

The grammatical subject is the simple subject without 
limiting terms ; as, " The man who hesitates is lost." 

Here " man " is the grammatical subject. 

The logical subject comprises the grammatical sub- 
ject, together with all the qualifying words. In the 
above example, " The man who hesitates " is the logical 
subject. 

IV. Sentences may contain adjuncts, phrases, and 
clauses. 

An adjunct consists of a preposition and the words 
that it governs. In the expression, " The history of the 
American Revolution" the words in Italics are the ad- 
junct of " history." 

A phrase is a brief combination of words having no 
connection with the sentence, either in construction or 
sense, but conveying a separate idea ; as, " In short." 
" On the contrary." " To confess the truth." 

. A clause is a part of a sentence incomplete in itself, 
and generally asserting some additional circumstance 
of the leading proposition. 

V. There are several kinds of clauses, but only four 
are referred to in this treatise ; viz., relative, participial, 
adverbial, and adjective. 

A relative clause is one which begins with a relative 
pronoun ; as, " Man, who is born of a woman, is of few 
days." 

A participial clause is one which begins with a par- 
ticiple ; as, " He, being dead, yet speaketh." 



1 2 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

An adverbial clause is one which performs the office 
of an adverb, expressing time, place, or manner; as, 
" Far away in the distance, a light appeared." 

An adjective clause is one that performs the office of 
an adjective; as, ''Awkward in his person, James was 
ill qualified to command respect." 

VI. When a relative clause restricts the general sense 
of the antecedent to a particular sense, it is called re- 
strictive ; as, " Those icho sleep late lose the best part of 
the day." But, as it is obvious that sentences in which 
the relative may be supplied are subject to the same 
rule as those in which it is expressed, participial and 
adjective (which may be converted into relative) clauses 
may also be restrictive; as, "A man tormented by a guilty 
conscience cannot be happy." "A man eager to learn 
will apply himself to study." 

Note. — Adverbial clauses and adjuncts may also be restrictive; 
as, "He came when I least expected him.'' " A bird in the hand is worth 
two in the bush." 

VII. Sentences are divided, in respect to signification, 
into declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory. 

A declarative sentence is one that declares something; 
as, " God reigns." 

An interrogative sentence is* one that asks a question; 
as, " What is truth ? " u Art thou that prophet ? " 

An exclamatory sentence is one that conveys an 
abrupt or earnest expression of emotion. It has some- 
times a declarative, and sometimes an interrogative, 
form ; as, " Our brethren are already in the field ! " 
" Can it be possible ! " 

Note. — Sentences which are partly declarative and partly inter- 
rogative or exclamatory are called semi-interrogative or semi-ex- 
clamatory ; as, "He said unto Simon, 'Seest thou this woman?'" 
"And he said, ' O my son Absalom ! My son ! my son ! ' " 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

VIII. Interrogative sentences are either diiect or in- 
direct. 

The former are interrogative in form as well as mean- 
ing, and are further divided into definite and indefinite. 

Definite interrogatives are those which must be defi- 
nitely answered by yes or no, or the equivalents of those 
words ; as, " Will you go to-day ? " 

Indefinite interrogatives are such as cannot be an- 
swered by yes or no ; as, " Why will you go to-day ? " 
They are so called because they require an indefinite 
answer; that is, one that cannot be known beforehand. 

Indirect interrogative sentences have the declarative 
form with an interrogative meaning ; as, " You are not 
angry, sure ? " 

Note. — These seem always to imply a question immediately fol- 
lowing, unexpressed; as, "They were gone on yonr arrival [were 
they] ?" "He did not share in the unhappy transaction [did he] ?" 

IX. With regard to their structure, sentences are 
divided into simple and compound. 

Simple sentences are such as express but one proposi- 
tion ; as, " Birds sing." " The storm has passed away." 

Compound sentences express or imply more than 
one proposition ; as, " The boys study, and the girls play. 
The boys and girls study. The boys study and play." 

Note. — As almost all the principles of elocution which apply to 
compound, are involved in the delivery of simple, sentences, it has 
not been thought necessary in this work to make special reference to 
the former. 

X. The structure of sentences is also distinguished 
into periodic, loose, and compact. 

A periodic sentence is composed of parts mutually 
dependent in construction. It is so called because such 
a sentence, when completed, presents a rounded form. 



1 4 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

A loose sentence is composed of two or more sen- 
tences loosely put together, 

Observation. — The following example may illustrate both these 
forms : " Afterwards we came to anchor, and they put me on shore, 
where I was welcomed by all my friends, who received me with the 
greatest kindness." This is a loose sentence, being composed of 
four distinct sentences with four subjects and four correspondent 
verbs. It may be moulded into the periodic form, with a single 
subject, I, and a single stem-sentence, with its dependent clauses, 
thus : " Having come to anchor, I was put on shore, where I was 
welcomed by all my friends, and received with the greatest kindness." 

The compact sentence consists of parts beginning 
with correlative words expressed or understood; as, 
" Though the man was intellectually rich, yet he was 
morally poor." [Though] " A professed Catholic, [yet] 
he imprisoned the pope." 

Note. — Correlative words are such as express reciprocal rela- 
tions ; as, though — yet, such — as, if — then, either — or, etc. 

XI. Compellatives are words or phrases of address; 
as, " Fellow-citizens ! " " Ye blind leaders of the blind ! " 
" Princes, potentates, and powers ! " 

XII. A circumstance is a part of a sentence required 
by the sense, but not necessary to the construction. It 
may be either at the beginning, middle, or end of the 
sentence ; as, " On the other hand, there are some who 
deny the very existence of the Deity." u Far be it from 
me," cried Demetrius, " to lay so heavy a charge upon 
him." "Hug not this delusion to your breast, I 'pray 
you." 

XIII. A parenthesis is a part of a sentence which is 
not essential either to its sense or its construction ; as, 
"The rocks (hard-hearted varlets!) melted not into 
tears." 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

XIV. A series is a succession of two or more words, 
phrases, or clauses, joined in construction ; as, " The 
hermit's life is calm, devotional, and contemplative.'' 
" God's love w r ateheth over all, provideth for all, maketh 
wise adaptations for all." 

XV. Antithesis is the juxtaposition of contrasted ex- 
pressions, for the purpose of heightening their effect ; 
as, "Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue." 
" Flattery hrings friends ; truth brings foes." 

Melody in speech is the art of employing and com- 
bining inflections. 

Inflection* is that variation of the voice in reading or 
speaking which consists in rising or falling in respect 
to pitch.f 

The inflections must be either upward or downward; 
or else a combination of these. 

The upward inflections are the bend and the rising 
slide. 

The downward inflections are the falling slide, the 
partial close, and the perfect close. 

Note. — For all ordinary purposes of marking the upward and 
downward inflections, the usual grave and acute accents will be suf- 
ficient. No others will be used in this book. 

The combination of these appears in the waving slide, 
the w T ave of accent, and the wave of emphasis. 



Note. — For directions for marking the wave of emphasis, see p. — . 

* Latin, inflectere: to bend, to turn from a direct line or course. 

f Key, in elocution, has a meaning not essentially different from that 
which pertains to it in music. It is the prevailing tone ; that which you hear 
in the reading of one in an adjoining room, when you cannot distinguish 
the words. 

Pitch is used rather as a point of elevation, relatively, in a series or scale 
of tones. 



16 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 



CHAPTER II. 

UPWARD INFLECTIONS — THE BEND. 

The bend is a slight upward turn of the voice, indi- 
cating primarily a pause of imperfect sense; as, "If 
there be any consolation in Christ', any comfort of love', 
any fellowship of the spirit', any bowels and mercies', 
fulfill ye my joy." l< The trials of wandering and 
exile', of the ocean, the wilderness, and the savage foe', 
were the final assurances of success." 

Note. — The bend is deferred from "wandering" to "exile". 
"Ocean," "wilderness," "savage foe," are all in apposition with 
"wandering and exile". If there were a bend on each member of 
the series, there would be no proper grouping. Instead of the bend, 
there is a slight suspension of the voice after " ocean " and " wilder- 
ness ". 

The bend is marked with the acute accent. 

The bend is employed : — 

a. In the intermediate pauses of declarative sentences 
(vn, p. 12); as, "Virtue' is the condition of happiness." 
" In the autumn of 1873' the war had closed with 
glory." 

Observation. — When, however, the parts of a sentence are 
closely connected, the divisions are marked by a mere suspension of 
voice, without the upward bend ; as, "To the perusal of the authors 
of the second class I shall now proceed." "The prayers of David 
the son of Jesse are ended." (No bend at "class" and "David.") 
A great deal of general effect in reading, especially in point of 
melody, depends on nice discrimination in this particular. 

The bend is used also : — 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— THE BEND. 17 

b. At the end of the declarative part of a semi-inter- 
rogative or semi-exclamatory sentence, when this part 
precedes the rest ; as, " And he said', ' Is your father 
well, the old man of whom ye spake? ' " " They said, 
therefore, unto him V Who art thou?'" "They will 
cry in the last accents of despair', ' Oh for a Washing- 
ton, an Adams, or a Jefferson ! ' " 

Note. — 1. If the declarative part is very short, a pause may be 
used instead of a bend ; as, " I ask, — What have we effected by this 
measure ? " 

2. In a semi-interrogatory or semi-exclamatory sentence, the in- 
terrogative or exclamatory portion takes its own proper inflection 
(See chaps, in and iv), as if it stood alone ; and where it pre- 
cedes, that inflection is communicated to the following declarative 
portion, which becomes a circumstance (xn, p. 14), by virtue of its 
position. For example, " 'Art thou there?' cried he 7 ." " Who art 
thou v ? I inquired." When, on the other hand, the declarative por- 
tion precedes, the partial close, instead of the bend, is employed (See 
chap, v, on the Partial Close, p. 52). 

Again, the bend is employed : — 

c. To terminate the first part, and all the members of 
the first part, of a compact sentence (x, p. 13) ; as, " If 
you know that the object is good', then seek it." 
" Neither hath this man sinned', nor his parents." 

Observation 1. — This is equally true, whether the correlative 
terms (Note, p. 14) are expressed or not; as, "[Though] a pro- 
fessed Catholic 7 , [yet] he imprisoned the pope." " As they have 
won an honorable station among independent states', [so] it becomes 
an imperative duty to treat them as such." 

Observation 2. — When the clauses of a compact sentence are in- 
verted in order, the inflections proper to the direct order are retained ; 
as, "Unless I am greatly mistaken 7 , the report is untrue." "The 
report is untrue, unless I am greatly mistaken 7 .'- 

Again, the bend is employed : — 

d. At compellatives (xi, p. 14), whether occurring at 

2 



18 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence ; as, " Gen- 
tlemen', I rise to address 3'ou on one of the most inter- 
esting subjects that can engage the human mind." " I 
perceive, conscript fathers', that every look, that every 
eye, is fixed on me." " How now, foolish rheum' ? " 

To this rule there are several exceptions. Thus, com- 
pellatives take the falling slide {See chap, iv) : — 

(1) When they follow a very strong emphasis ; as, 
"Get thee behind me, Satan'!" "Hence! home! you 
idle creatures' ! " 

(2) When the} 7 are repeated for the purpose of being 
heard; as, "Mr. Speaker'! Mr. Speaker'!" "Hero'! 
Why, cousin Hero' ! Uncle' ! Senior Benedick' ! " 

Note. — Implied, as well as actual, repetition may be expressed 
by the falling slide. Thus, in the illustration, "Hero" is repeated, 
while " Uncle " and "Senior Benedick" are delivered as if they, 
too, had been repeated. 

Observation. — But when compellatives are repeated for any other 
purpose, the bend is magnified into the rising slide (See chap, in) ; 
as, "O my son Absalom 7 ! my son, my son Absalom' ! " 

Again, compellatives take the falling slide : — 

(3) When they begin a letter, or a formal address ; as, 
" General' ! your orders have been obeyed." " Romans, 
countrymen, and lovers' ! " " Mr. John G. Robertson, 
Sir'." * 

Note. — In punishing a child you say — ''Go into the closet, 
Johnny v ! " If the bend is used after " Johnny," it makes the latter 
word a circumstance merely, and not a rebuke. 

Finally, the bend is employed : — 

e. At a parenthesis, when following a part of a sen- 
tence making imperfect sense; as, " We hold, you know, 
(and rightly too') that all government is, or ought to be. 
made for the benefit of the people." {See chap, v, oh 
the Partial Close, p. 53.) 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS—THE BEND. 19 

Note. — As a parenthesis has no individuality, it takes its color- 
ing from what precedes. 

Observation 1. — Indefinite interrogatives (vin, p. 13) in paren- 
thesis follow this rule, take the rising or the falling slide, according 
to the degree of emphasis required ; as, with bend : il And what 
(why ask me') is to save us from these abuses? " ; with rising slide: 
" I wished (why should I deny it'?) that it had been my case instead 
of my sister's"; with falling slide: "Lend it not as to thy friend, 
(for when did friendship take a breed of barren metal of his friend v ?), 
but lend it rather to thine enemy." 

Observation 2. — How the bend and other inflections are modi- 
fied by the intervention of emphasis will appear when we come to 
consider that subject. (See chap, vii, on the Effect of Emphasis on 
Other Inflections, p. 77.) 

Examples for Practice in the Use of the Bend. 
Intermediate Pauses. 

Ignorance is the mother of error. 

One ounce of gold is worth fifteen ounces of silver. 

That interesting history he did not read. 

At the bottom of the garden ran a little rivulet. 

With his conduct last evening I was not pleased. 

In the prodigious efforts of a veteran army, beneath 
the dazzling splendors of their array, there is something 
revolting to a reflecting mind. 

I shook myself, turned away, and tried to persuade 
myself that I had not been dreaming. 

The Faust of Goethe, tired of the barrier round of 
earthly knowledge, calls magic to his aid.. 

Perhaps the greatest master of English prose in the 
present century, not excepting even Macaulay, is Thomas 
De Quincey. 

In the midst of this widespread ruin, among totter- 
ing columns and falling edifices, one fabric alone stood 
erect, and braved the storm. 



20 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

You may be assured, gentlemen, of my continued 
regard. 

So long as sun, moon, and planets were supposed to 
be angels ; so long as the sword of Orion was not a 
metaphor, but a fact, and the groups of stars which in- 
laid the floor of heaven were the glittering trophies of 
the loves and wars of the Pantheon, — so long there was 
no science of astronomy. 

To give to the noblest thoughts the noblest expres- 
sion ; to penetrate the souls of men, and make them 
feel as if they were new creatures, conscious of new 
powers and loftier purposes; to make truth and justice, 
wisdom and virtue, patriotism and religion, holier and 
more majestic things than men had ever dreamed them 
to be before ; to delight as well as to convince ; to charm, 
to win, to arouse, to calm, to warn, to enlighten, and to 
persuade, — this is the function of the orator. 

The sick, untended then, 
Languished in the dark shade, and died afar from men. 

His native hills that rise in happier climes, 
The grot that heard his song of other times, 
His cottage home, his bark of slender sail, 
His glassy lake^ and broomwood-blossomed vale, 
Rush on his thoughts. 

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
Andhate for arts that caused himself to rise; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer ; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, 
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— TILE BEND. 21 

And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged ; 
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise, — 
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? 
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ? 

Declaratives with Parts Closely Connected, for which the 
Bend is not Required. 

Among the most remarkable of its attributes is jus- 
tice. 

The surest evidence of Robert Hall's greatness is the 
very fact of his celebrity. 

Suddenly the sound of the signal gun broke the still- 
ness of the night. 

We will endeavor to refute, now, his third argument. 

He ceased, and we both fell into a revery. 

And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the 
knife to slay his son. 

Csesar, who would not wait the conclusion of the con- 
sul's speech, generously replied, that he came into Italy, 
not to injure the liberties of Rome and its citizens, but 
to restore them. 

The dying Englishman, pouring his medicine which 
has paid twenty-two per cent., makes his will on an 
eight-pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an 
apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds 
for the privilege of putting him to death. 

And still, in memory's twilight bowers, 
The spirits of departed hours, 
With mellowing tints, portray 
The blossoms of life's vernal flowers 
Forever fallen away. 



22 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

All night the dreadless angel, unpursued 

Through heaven's wide champaign, held his way, till morn, 

Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand 

Unbarred the gates of light. 

The hills, 
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun, the vales, 
Stretching in pensive quietness between, 
The venerable woods, rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green, and, poured round all, 
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. 

Semi-Interrogative and Semi- Exclamatory Sentences, 
Involving the Use of the Bend. 

And first I ask, What is that country ? what is this 
golden prize for which we are to contend ? 

Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this 
parable unto us, or unto all ? 

At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds 
as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may 
she not exhibit ! 

And they cried out the more, saying, Have mercy on 
us! 

During the conversation he was silent; but I heard 
him, as he went out, saying to a man with whom he was 
walking, " And so he died without making, after all, a 
confession of his many crimes ? " 

If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly 
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him ? 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, 
and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often 
would I have gathered thy children together, even as a 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS-THE BEND. 23 

hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
would not ! 

They could not behold the workings of the heart, the 
quivering lips, the trickling tears, the loud yet tremu- 
lous joys of the millions whom the vote of this night 
would forever save from the cruelty of corrupted power ; 
but was not the true enjoyment of their benevolence 
increased by the blessing being conferred unseen ? 

When a government forbids its citizens, under pain 
of death, to receive any pension or largess from the 
hands of foreigners, how gentle and easy is that law to 
those who, for the sake of their fatherland and liberty, 
would, of their own accord, abstain from so unworthy 
an act ! but, on the contrary, how harsh and oppressive 
does it appear to those who care for nothing but their 
selfish gains ! 

They leave their crimes for history to scan, 
And ask, with busy scorn, Was this the man ? 

Once upon a raw and gusty day, 
The troubled Tiber chafing with its shores, 
Caesar says to me, Darest thou, Cassius, now 
Leap in with me into this angry flood, 
And swim to yonder point? 

Auspicious Hope ! in thy sweet garden grow 
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe : 
Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour 
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower ; 
There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing, 
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring ! 

Compact Sentences, in ivhich the Bend is Used. 

I neither love, nor fear thee. 

If he, then I. 

If he confessed it, then forgive him. 



24 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

When he rose, every sound was hushed. 

I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God 
than dwell in the tents of wickedness. 

Trained and instructed, strengthened by wise disci- 
pline, and guided by pure principle, it ripens into an 
intelligence a little lower than the angels. 

Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall 
fruit be in the vines ; the labor of the olive shall fail, and 
the fields shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off 
from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: 
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of 
my salvation. 

Where you see a man meeting obstacles and removing 
them, struggling with difficulties and overcoming them, 
and still pressing forward under every discouragement, 
self-denying and self-relying, there you see a man who 
will probably rise in the world. 

As the middle, and the fairest, and the most conspicu- 
ous places in cities, are usually chosen for the erection 
of statues and monuments dedicated to the memory of 
worthy men who have nobly deserved of their country ; 
so should we in the heart and centre of our soul, in the 
best and highest apartment thereof, in the places most 
exposed to ordinary observation, and most secure from 
worldly care, erect lively representations and lasting 
memorials of divine bounty. 

As pants the hart for cooling streams, 

When heated in the chase; 
So longs my soul, O God, for thee, 

And thy refreshing grace. 

Where yon old trees bend o'er a place of graves, 
And solemn shade a chapel's sad remains ; 
Where yon scathed poplar through the window waves, 
And, twining round, the hoary arch sustains; 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— THE BEND. 25 

There oft at dawn, as one forgot behind, 
Who longs to follow, yet unknowing where, 
Some hoary shepherd, o'er his staff reclined, 
Pores on the graves, and sighs a broken prayer. 

When thy surges no longer shall roll, 
And that firmament's length is drawn back like a scroll, 
Then, then, shall the spirit that sighs by thee now 
Be more mighty, more lasting, more chainless than thou. 

Compact Sentences, Requiring the Bend, although the 
Correlative Terms are not both Expressed. 

Because I live, ye shall live also. 

We know that we have passed from death unto life, 
because we love the brethren. 

You may skim the surface of science, or fathom its 
depths. 

Genius, intellect, imagination, taste, and sensibility, 
must be baptized into religion, or they will never know, 
and never make known, their real glory and immortal 
power. 

Had our forefathers failed on that day of trial which 
we now celebrate ; had their votes and their resolves 
ended in the breath in which they began ; had the 
rebels laid down their arms as they were commanded, 
and the military stores which had been frugally treas- 
ured up for the crisis been, without resistance, de- 
stroyed: then the Revolution had been at an end, or, 
rather, it had never been begun. 

A royalist, a republican, and an emperor; a Mahom- 
medan, a Catholic, and a patron of the synagogue; a 
subaltern and a sovereign; a traitor and a t} r rant; a 
Christian and an infidel : he was, through all his vicissi- 
tudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible original, the 
same mysterious, incomprehensible self, — the man with- 
out a model and without a shadow. 



26 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

When the great Earl of Chatham first made his ap- 
pearance in the House of Commons, and began to aston- 
ish and transport the British Parliament and British 
nation by the boldness, the force and range of his 
thoughts, and the celestial fire and pathos of his elo- 
quence, it is well known that the minister Walpole and 
his brother Horace, from motives very easily under- 
stood, exerted all their wit, all their oratory, all their 
acquirements of every description, sustained and en- 
forced by the unfeeling insolence of office, to heave a 
mountain on his gigantic genius, and hide it from the 
world. 

When he breathes his master-lay 
Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall, 

All passions in our frames of clay 
Come thronging at his call. 

When to the common rest that crowns our days, 

Called in the noon of life, the good man goes' ; 

Or, full of years and ripe in wisdom, lays 

His silver temples in their last repose' ; 

When o'er the buds of youth the death-wind blows, 

And blights the fairest 7 ; when our bitterest tears 

Stream, as the eyes of all that loved us close: 

We think on what they were, and leave the coming years. 

When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over thy spirit, and sad images 
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; 
Go forth under the open sky and list 
To nature's teachings. 

Had'st thou but shook thy head, or made a pause, 
When I spake darkly what I purposed ; 
Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face, 



UP WARD INFLECTIONS— THE BEND. 27 

And bid me tell my tale in express words : 

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off, 

And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me. 

Compellatives Delivered with the Bend. 

The heavens and earth, Lord ! proclaim thy bound- 
less power. 

O blessed spirit freed from earth, rejoice ! 

This, O men of Athens ! my duty prompted me to 
represent to you on this occasion. 

Sir, the declaration will inspire the people with in- 
creased courage. 

Yes, land of liberty, thy children have no cause to 
blush for thee. 

Haughty lord ! 
Think not I stoop to deprecate your wrath. 

For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound ! 

For your sake, jewel, 
I am glad at soul I have no other child. 

Departed spirits of the mighty dead ! 
Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled ! 
Friends of the world ! restore your swords to man, 
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van ! 

Compellatives, with Falling Slide, as Following Strong 

Emphasis. 

Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on ] 

Down, soothless insulter ! I trust not the tale. 

Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites ! 

Stand ! the ground's your own, my braves ! 

How could ye do this, ye slaves and miserable panders of tyranny ! 



28 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

Then melt, ye elements ! that formed in vain 
This troubled pulse and visionary brain ; 
Fade, ye wild flowers ! memorial of my doom ; 
And sink, ye stars ! that light me to the tomb ! 

Compellatives with Falling Slide, Because Repeated in Order 
to be Heard. 

Mr. Speaker ! Mr. Speaker ! 

Lord ! Lord ! open unto us. 

Hamlet. Hold off thy hand ! 
King. Pluck them asunder! 
Queen. Hamlet! Hamlet! 

Lysander ! what ! removed ? Lysander ! lord ! 
What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word? 

O mother, mother, do not jest 
On such a theme as this. 

Compellatives Repeated with Rising Slide. 

Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! thou that kiliest the proph- 
ets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, etc. 

Oh! Raimond ! Raimond ! 
If it should be that I have wronged thee, say 
Thou dost forgive me. 

O mother ! mother ! mother ! 
How strange it seems to me ! 

O Cromwell, Cromwell, 
Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
. I served my King, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to my enemies. 

Parenthesis, Delivered with the Fend. 

He had not been there (as I was informed by those 
who lived in the neighborhood, and were acquainted 
with him) since the year 1796. 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— THE BEND. 29 

Should liberty continue to be abused in this country 
as it has been for some time past (and though dema- 
gogues may not admit, yet sensible and observing men 
will not deny that it has been), the people will seek re- 
lief in despotism or in emigration. 

Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that 
know the law), how that the law hath' dominion over a 
man as long as he liveth ? 

Could he possibly have committed this crime (I am 
sure he could not), which, as all will acknowledge, is at 
variance with the character he has borne, and the whole 
tenor of his life ? 

And what now (I ask you) is to save us from the 
abuse of all this power? 

She had managed this matter so well (oh ! she was the 
most artful of women !) that my father's heart was gone 
before I suspected it was in clanger. 

It was represented by an analogy (oh ! how inade- 
quate !) which was borrowed from the religion of 
paganism. 

Indefinite Interrogatives in Parenthesis. 

Sir, to borrow the words of one of your own poets, 
whose academic sojourn was in the next college to that 
in which we are now assembled, (and in what language 
but that of Milton can I hope to do justice to Bacon and 
Newton ?) if their star should ever for a period go down, 
it must be to rise again with new splendor. 

I am so ill at present (an illness of my own procuring 
last night: who is perfect?) that nothing but your very 
great kindness could make me write. 

While they wish to please (and why should they not 
wish it ?) they disdain dishonorable means. 

God hath a special indignation against pride above 



30 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

all other sins ; and he will cross our endeavors, not 
because they are evil, (what hurt could th^re be in lay- 
ing one brick on another ; or rearing a Babel more than 
any other edifice ?) but because this business is proudly 
undertaken. 

Perhaps (for who can guess the effects of chance?) 
Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance. 



CHAPTER III. 

UPWARD INFLECTIONS — THE RISING SLIDE. 

The rising slide carries the voice upward through a 
succession of tones ; as, " Does God uniformly work in 
one way' ? " " Is this a dagger that I see before me, the 
handle towards my hand'? " 

Note. — a. The voice is carried gradually upward through a whole 
clause or sentence. 

b. In this volume the acute accent is employed to mark both the 
rising slide and the bend. The pupil must distinguish between them 
by considering the principles involved. Systematic exercises on 
vowels, etc., are recommended to train the ear to nice discriminations 
in inflection. 

c. A clause that is inverted, often takes the rising inflection, when, 
if the sentence were logically arranged, it would naturally take the 
partial close. 

The rising slide is used : — 

In the delivery of definite interrogative sentences 
(viii, p. 13), the voice continuing to rise from the begin- 
ning to the end of the sentence ; as, " Would you wish 
to ruin yourself in public opinion, merely to gratify 
your resentment'?" (See chap, iv, on the Falling Slide, 
Note, p. 43.) 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— THE RISING SLIDE. 31 

Observation 1. — When a circumstance (xn, p. 14) follows the 
interrogative, in close connection with it, the slide is continued to 
the end of the circumstance; as, "'Am I my brother's keeper?' said 
the unhappy man'." 

Note.— This is because the circumstance takes its coloring from what pre- 
cedes. 

Observation 2. — When the interrogative is unusually long, the 
rising slide is confined to the beginning and the end of the sentence, 
the intermediate part being delivered in a level tone; as, "Hast 
thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the 
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is 
weary?" (^ - ? ) 

Observation 3. — W T hen a sentence consists of several interroga- 
tions, more or less closely bound together, the parts should be deliv- 
ered successively with the rising slide, each part a little higher than 
that which precedes it; as, "W r as it not, evidently, that he might 
communicate happiness ? and does not this design appear conspicuous 
on the open face of nature ? " 

Note.— The reader must judge whether the series consists of independent 
interrogatives, or constitutes a single sentence in several parts. Ordinary- 
punctuation is not an unerring guide. 

There are several exceptions to the rule. Thus, the 
definite interrogative may take a downward inflec- 
tion (See chap, iv) when repeated : — 

a. For more distinct understanding ; as, " ' Did you 
see him there 7 ? ' < Sir 7 ? ' 'Did you see him there ? ' " 

b. As a rejoinder to an evasive reply ; as, '• ' Wilt thou 
be lord of all the world 7 ? ' ' What sayst thou 7 ? * ' Wilt 
thou be lord of the whole world*? That's twice.' " 

c. For greater emphasis; as, "'Will you deny it'? 



* For explanation of this reversal of the slide of an indefinite interroga- 
tive, see Chap. IV, exceptions to the rnle, c. p. 43. Here Ave have an im- 
plied repetition ; as though the question had been asked before, with the 
appropriate falling inflection. 



32 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

Will you deny it x ? ' said he, repeating the question in 
a louder and more emphatic tone." 

This includes also a peculiar case presented by dec- 
larations put for emphasis in interrogative form ; as, 
"Didn't we have a good time v ? " 

Again, the falling slide is used with a definite inter- 
rogative : — 

When it is the last of a series of interrogatives, with 
or without intermediate answers; as, " Is he honest'? 
Is he faithful'? Is he capable'?" 

Note. — Such a series involves the idea of climax. 

Finally, the falling slide is used with a definite inter- 
rogative : — 

When the latter is stated or quoted ; as, " The ques- 
tion is, will you go x ? " " He asked me, ' Shall you go 
to-day r ?'" 

Note. — For the rising slide with compellatives, see Observation, 
p. 18; with indefinite interrogatives, see e, p. 18, Observation 1; p. 
19, and exceptions to the rule, p. 42. 

Examples for Practice in the Use of the Rising 
Slide. 

Definite Interrogatives with Rising Slide. 

Did Paul make a worse preacher for being brought up 
at the feet of Gamaliel ? 

Has any one called on you this morning, to invite 
you to the musical entertainment at the Odeon? 

Did not even-handed justice, ere long, commend the 
poisoned chalice to their own lips ? 

Are the palaces of kings to be regarded with more in- 
terest than the humbler roofs that shelter millions of 
human beings ? 

Is the celestial fire which glowed in their hearts for- 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS-THE RISING SLIDE. 33 

ever quenched, and nought but ashes left to mingle with 
the earth, and be blown around the world? 

Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the 
blind, have caused that even this man should not have 
died? 

Is it not remarkable that the same temper of weather 
which raises this general warmth of animals should 
cover the trees with leaves, and the fields with grass, 
for their security and concealment, and produce such 
infinite swarms of insects for the support and sustenance 
of their respective broods ? 

Are all the feelings of ancestry, posterity, and fellow- 
citizenship ; all the charm, veneration, and love bound 
up in the name of country ; the delight, the enthusiasm 
with which we seek out, after the lapse of generations 
and ages, the traces of our fathers' bravery and wisdom, 
— are these all a legal fiction ? 

Does prodigal Autumn to our age deny 

The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober eye? 

Dids't thou not hear the pother o'er thy head, 

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, 
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread, 

O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis, — 
And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder 

When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder ? 

Will a man play tricks, will he indulge 
A silly, fond conceit of his fair form 
And just proportion, fashionable mien, 
And pretty face, in presence of his God ? 

Canst thou with impious obloquy condemn 
The just decrees of God, pronounced and sworn, 
That to his only Son, by right endued 
With regal sceptre, every soul in heaven 
Shall bend the knee, and, in that honor due, 
Confess him rightful King? 
3 



34 MELQD Y IN SPEECH. 

Definite Interrugatives with Circumstance Included in the 
Rising Slide. 

Do you dread death in my company ? he cried to the 
anxious sailors, when the ice on the coast of Holland 
had almost crushed the boat that was bearing him to 
the shore. 

Do you know Mr. Brown? said Arthur to his friend 
one morning at breakfast. 

Will you lend me a thousand francs? said he, sud- 
denly turning to the sculptor. 

Isn't your brother riding that horse a little rashly? 
Reginald said to John Fletcher in the hunting field one 
day. 

Definite Interrogatives, the Length of which Modifies the 
Rising Slide. 

Is it then possible that we can be indifferent, that we 
can delay preparation for another state, that we can 
hesitate to embrace the proffers of grace, when death is 
an event that may occur at any moment, when it may 
occur now while I am speaking from this sacred desk? 

Can we believe a thinking being that is in a perpetual 
progress of improvement, and travelling on from perfec- 
tion to perfection, after just having looked abroad into 
the works of his Creator, and made a few discoveries of 
his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish 
at his first setting out, and in the very beginning of his 
inquiries? 

Should we not think it very unreasonable, if he 
should, in this case, persist in discrediting the testimony 
even of a single man whose veracity he had no reason 
to suspect; and, much more, if he should persist in op- 
position to the concurrent and continually increasing 
testimony of numbers? 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— THE RISING SLIDE. 35 

Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, 
so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there 
has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonder- 
ful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a 
promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious? 

Is it because the natural resistance of things, and the 
various mutations of time, hinder our government, or 
any scheme of government, from being any more than 
a sort of approximation to the right, is it therefore that 
the colonies are to recede from it infinitely ? 

With the eye of the enthusiast do you often gaze at the 
triumphs of the arts, and will you do nothing to rescue 
their choicest relics from worse than vandal barbarism? 

Could thirst of vengeance and desire of fame 
Excite the female breast with martial flame ; 
And shall not love's diviner power inspire 
More hardy virtue and more generous fire ? 
Will he seek to dazzle me with tropes 
As with the diamond on his lily hand, 
And play his brilliant parts before my eyes, 
When I am hungry for the bread of life? 

Will he quench the ray 
Infused by his own forming smile at first, 
And leave a work so fair all blighted and accursed ? 
Say, shall they feel the vessel reel, 
When to the battery's deadly peal 
The crashing broadside makes reply ? 

Is aught so fair 
As virtuous friendship ; as the honored roof 
Whither from highest heaven immortal love 
His torch ethereal and his golden bow 
Propitious brings, and there a temple holds 
To whose unspotted service gladly vowed 
The social band of parent, brother, child, 
With smiles and sweet discourse and gentle deeds 
Adore his power ! 



36 MELODY IN SPEECH. m 

Several Definite Interrogatives Requiring Successive 
Rising Slide. 

Was it to be wondered at that a people so circum- 
stanced should search for the cause and source of all 
their calamities ; or was it to be wondered at that they 
should find them in the arbitrary interpretations of 
their constitution, and in the prodigal and corrupt ad- 
ministration of their revenues ? 

Had not a paltry unconstitutional tax, neither in 
amount nor in principal to be named with the taxes of 
France, just put the continent of America in a flame ; 
and was it possible that the young officers of the French 
army should come back to their native land from the 
war of political emancipation waged on this conti- 
nent, and sit down contented under the old abuses at 
home? 

Shall we permit this curiously compacted body poli- 
tic, the nicest adjustment of human wisdom, to go to 
pieces ? Will we blast this beautiful symmetric form, 
paralyze this powerful arm of public strength, smite 
with imbecility this great national intellect? 

Is the being, who, surveying nature, recognizes to a 
certain extent the great scheme of the universe, but who 
sees infinitely more which he does not comprehend, and 
which he ardently desires to know, — is he to perish like 
a mere brute, all his knowledge useless, all his most 
earnest wishes ungratified ? 

Can that within man which reasons like his immortal 
Creator, which sees and acknowledges his wisdom, and 
approves of his designs, be mortal like the rest? Is it 
probable, nay, is it possible, that what can thus com- 
prehend the operations of an immortal agent is not itself 
immortal? 

And is not moral greatness superior to this ? Is not 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— THE RISING SLIDE. 37 

a crown of glory around brows that never die better 
than a diadem of gold upon a neshless skull ? Is not a 
name written with the finger of God in the book of life 
better than a name written over the shrine of our bones 
with rubies ? 

Is this the genuine fruit of the pious care of our ances- 
tors for the security and propagation of religion and 
good manners to the latest posterity ? is this at last the 
reward of their munificence ? or does this conduct cor- 
respond with the views, or with the just expectations 
and demands, of your friends and your country? 

But is that enough to say ? Is there no danger that 
it may do that brave and unfortunate people some 
harm ? Is there no danger that such a course of action 
as is proposed here might give rise to unfounded hopes 
in Hungary, or increase, perhaps, their sufferings, by 
irritating those who govern them ? 

Have you never stood by the seaside at night, and 
heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glo- 
ries ? Or have you never risen from your couch, and 
thrown up the window and listened there? And have 
you not fancied that you heard the harp of God play- 
ing in heaven ? Did you not conceive that yon stars, 
that those eyes of God, looking down on you, were also 
mouths of song — that every star was singing God's 
glory, singing, as it shone, its mighty Maker and his 
well-deserved praise ? 

Do not you, and did not they, feel that this life can- 
not be man's only abiding place ? that this spirit cannot 
pass upon the hasty and uncertain waves of time to an 
eternal nothing? that the restless, irrepressible, and un- 
satisfied leapings of the heart and the affections after 
that which is higher and beyond all that surrounds us, 
demand that we should credit something which belongs 



38 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

not to the passing hour? that all the economy of 
nature, the beauty of the earth, the brilliancy of the 
stars, the glory of the lights of the day and the night, 
the forms of human strength and loveliness, cannot be 
taken from us, and pass forever from our sight and 
our enjoyment? that there must be a continued, a pro- 
longed existence, where the eye shall see, the ear hear, 
beauty fade not, the affections of the heart be not 
blasted, and the glorious panoply of Nature be spread 
out forever ? 

Has Nature in her calm, majestic march, 
Faltered with age at last; does the bright sun 
Grow dim in heaven ; or in their far blue arch 
Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, 
Less brightly ? 

Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave 

Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, 

Fit haunt of gods? 

Heard ye those loud, contending waves, 
That shook Cecropia's pillared state ? 
Saw ye the mighty from their graves 
Look up, and tremble at her fate? 

Can the deep statesman skilled in great design 

Protect but for a day precarious breath ? 

Or the tuned follower of the sacred Nine 

Soothe with his melody insatiate death? 

Has silence pressed her seal upon his lips ? 

Does adamantine faith invest his heart ? 

Will he not bend beneath a tyrant's frown ? 

"Will he not melt before ambition's fire ? 

Will he not soften in a friend's embrace? 

Or flow dissolving in a woman's tears? 
Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim, 
Lights of the world, and demigods of fame ? 
Is this your triumph, this your proud applause, 
Children of Truth, and champions of her cause? 



UPWARD INFLECTIONS— THE RISING SLIDE. 39 

For this, hath Science searched on weary wing, 

By shore and sea, each mute and living thing? 

Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep, 

To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep? 

Or round the cope her living chariot driven, 

And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven? 

Hark ! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? 
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath ? 
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote, 
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath 
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? 

Is the lance broken, is the shield decayed, 

The warrior's arm unstrung, his heart dismayed ? 

Shall no high spirit of descendant worth 

Arise to lead the sons of Islam forth ; 

To guard the regions where our fathers' blood 

Hath bathed each plain, and mingled with each flood; 

Where long their dust hath blended with the soil 

Won by their swords, made fertile by their toil ? 

Definite Interrogativcs, Slide Reversed. 

Peters, fearful that his companion might overlook 
some of the happy hits of the different personages on 
the stage, soon electrified the audience by* exclaiming, 
without turning his head, in a suppressed and emphatic 
voice, when particularly pleased, " Austin, d'ye hear 
that?" and again, after a little while, "Austin, d'ye 
hear that?" 

Has the gentleman done ? Has he completely done ? 
He was unparliamentary from the beginning to the 
end of his speech. 

Definite Interrogatlves, Falling Slide. 

Countess. Howe'er I charge thee, 

As Heaven shall work in me for thine avail, 
To tell me truly. 



40 MELOD 7 IN SPEECH. 

Helena. Good madam, pardon rae! 
Countess. Do you love my son ? 
Helena. Your pardon, noble mistress. 
Countess. Love you my son ? 
Helena. Do you not love him, madam ? 

Definite Interrogatives, Series. 

Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio? 

Am I your man? Am I myself? 

Are all apostles ? Are all prophets ? Are all teach- 
ers ? Are all workers of miracles ? Have all the gifts 
of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all in- 
terpret ? 

Shylock. Three thousand ducats: well. 

Bassanio. Ay, sir, for three months. 

Shy. For three months : well. 

Bass. For the which, as I told you, 
Antonio shall be bound. 

Shy. Antonio shall become bound : well. 

Bass. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? 
Shall I know your answer? 

Leonato, stand I here ? Is this the prince ? Is this 
the prince's ""brother? Is this face Hero's? Are our 
eyes our own ? 

Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and on 
all foul ways. Was ever man so beaten? Was ever 
man so rayed ? Was ever man so weary ? 

Art thou bound to a wife? Seek not to be loosed. 
Art thou loosed from a wife ? Seek not a wife. 






THE FALLING SLIDE. 41 



CHAPTER IV. 

DOWNWARD INFLECTIONS — THE FALLING SLIDE. 

As the rising slide has a tendency to connect, so the 
falling slide has a tendency to separate, ideas. Dynam- 
ically considered, it is the strongest of all the inflections. 
More intense pathos may be expressed by the rising 
slide. 

The falling slide carries the voice downward through 
a succession of tones. 

Note. — The voice is carried gradually downward through a whole 
clause or sentence. 

The falling slide is marked with the grave accent. 

It is used in the delivery of indefinite interrogative 
sentences (vni, p. 13), the voice rising until the emphatic 
word, and then continuing to fall to the close of the 
sentence ;* as, " Where is the man who has not his 
wrong tendencies to lament?" "When was it that 
Rome attracted more strongly the admiration of man- 
kind, and impressed the deepest sentiment of fear on 
the hearts of her enemies^ ? " 

Observation 1. — A. circumstance following an indefinite inter- 
rogative is delivered with a continuation of the falling slide, the cir- 

* This direction, like its counterpart, for the delivery of definite interroga- 
tives (chap, in, on the Rising Slide, p. 30), is very general, and subject to 
many modifications, particularly under the influence of emphasis. (Chap, 
vii, on the Effect of Emphasis on Other Inflections, p. 77.) Tt is merely intended 
to discourage those aimless fluctuations of the voice which so " easily beset " 
the reader in the delivery of long sentences, and to enjoin upon him to fix 
in his mind at the very outset the pitch at which he shall issue at the close, 
and steadily work toward it. 



42 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

cnmstance taking its coloring from what precedes; as, "'Who was 
it?' said the unhappy man to his friend V 

Observation 2. — When the indefinite interrogative is too long 
for a continuous downward slide, it must be delivered with that slide 
at the beginning and at the end, the intermediate part being given 
in a level tone; as," What reflecting American does not acknowledge 
the incalculable advantages derived to this land out of the deep founda- 
tions of civil, intellectual, and moral truth (\ 

from which we have drawn in England?" ' 

Observation 3.— When an indefinite interrogative consists of 
several parts, especially if they are themselves interrogatives, sepa- 
rate, but related to each other, these parts should be successively de- 
livered in a slightly lower tone unto the end ; as, " What are we to 
look for when you shall be no longer hackneyed in the ways of men, 
when ritualism shall have completed the (»>. 
obduration of your heart, and when expe- ^^^^^ 
rience shall have improved you in all the ^^ s \?) 

arts of guile?" 

Observation 4. — When an interrogative sentence is composed 
of two contrasted parts separated by the conjunction or, the former 
should be delivered with the rising, and the latter with the falling, 
slide; as, "Art thou he that should come/ or do we look for 
another^ ? " 

Observation 5. — Such sentences must be carefully discriminated 
from those, apparently similar, the parts of which are not contrasted, 
and in which the or is used conjunctively ; " Is a candle brought to 
be put under a bushel', or under a bed' ? " " Do men gather grapes 
of thorns', or figs of thistles' ? " 

There are several exceptions to the rule. Thus: — 
The indefinite interrogative may be delivered with the 
rising slide: — 

When repeated : — 

a. In order to obtain a more distinct answer; as, 
'"When will you have my picture done'?' 'Next 
week.' ' When will you have my picture done' ? ' ' Next 
week.' " " What is he r ? What' ? Touch-paper, to be 
sure ! " 



THE FALLING SLIDE. 43 

b. With inquiry, surprise, or scorn, preparatory to 
reply ; as, " ' Hark you, fellow ! whom do you live 
with x ? ' ' Whom do I live with' ? With my mistress, 
to be sure."' "'What's the matter'?' 'What's the 
matter' ? Here be four of us have taken a thousand 
pounds this morning.' " 

Note. — The sentences " Whom do I live with' ? " etc., are given 
with something like the waving slide (see chap, vi, p. 61), as they 
resemble in character the indirect interrogative, (vin, p. 13.) 

Again, the rising slide may be used with an indefinite 
interrogative : — 

c. W T hen there is great intensity in the question, im- 
plying a repetition of what has been asked before ; as, 
'"Well, then, away goes old Jack to the hospital.' 
'What's that you say'?'" 

Note. — In this instance and others like it, the rising slide may be 
supposed to indicate an ellipsis, the fall form of the sentence being 
definite. Thus, "What'?" or " What's that you" say'?" may be 
the equivalent of " Will you repeat what you say ? " or tm Do I hear 
correctly what you say ? " 

Finally, the rising slide is used with an indefinite 
interrogative : — 

In parenthesis, except when marked by strong em- 
phasis {See chap, ii, e, p. 18, and Observation 1, p. 
19). 

Observation. —The rising and falling inflections should be bal- 
anced as much as possible, when this can be done without affecting 
the sense. A succession of falling inflections especially, is injurious 
to melody. 

Note. — For the falling slide with compellatives see p. 18 ; with 
indefinite interrogates in parenthesis see Observation 1, p. 19; 
with definite interrogatives see exceptions to the rule, p. 31 ; with 
indirect interrogatives see Observations 1 and 2, p. 61. 



44 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

Examples for Practice in the Use of the Falling 
Slide. 

Indefinite Interrogatives, with Falling Slide. 

Who can say for how man} 7 centuries, safe in their 
undiscovered fastnesses, they had decked their war- 
chiefs with the feathers of the eagle's tail, and listened 
to the counsels of their beloved old men ? 

Who can doubt, that in the sacred desk, or at the bar, 
the man who speaks well will enjoy a larger share of 
reputation, and be more useful to his fellow-creatures, 
than the divine or the lawyer of equal learning and in- 
tegrity, but unblest with the talent of oratory ? 

Who that reads the concentrated sense and melodious 
versification of Dryden and Pope does not perceive in 
them the disciples of the old school, whose genius was 
inflamed by the heroic verse, the terse satire, and the 
playful wit, of antiquity ? 

Who will ever forget, that, in that eventful struggle 
which severed this mighty empire from the British 
crown, there was not heard throughout our continent, 
in arms, a voice which spoke louder for the rights of 
America than that of Burke or Chatham, within the 
walls of the British Parliament, and at the foot of the 
British throne ? 

What could have been his motive for pursuing the 
conduct he did on that occasion, when his obligations 
to act differently were numerous and solemn ? 

But what to them the sculptor's art, 
His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns ? 

And who that walks where men of ancient days 
Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds of praise, 
Feels not the spirit of the place control, 
Exalt, and agitate his laboring soul ? 



THE FALLING SLIDE. 45 

Why wouldst thou, but for some felonious end, • 

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars 

That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps 

With everlasting oil, to give due light 

To the misled and lonely traveller? 

Who that then 
Had seen those listening warrior-men, 
With their swords grasped, their eyes of flame 
Turned on their chief, could doubt the shame, 
The indignant shame, with which they thrill 
To hear those shouts, and yet stand still? 

Indefinite Interrogatives, the Length of which Modifies 
the Falling Slide. 

Why did they not, in the next breath, by way of 
crowning the climax of their vanity, bid the magnificent 
fire-ball to descend from its exalted and appropriate 
region, and perform its splendid tour along the surface 
of the earth ? 

Who can tell how much of his good or ill success in 
life, how much of the favor or disregard with which he 
himself has been treated, may have depended upon that 
skill or deficiency in grammar of which he must have 
afforded certain and constant evidence? 

What time can suffice for the contemplation and wor- 
ship of that glorious, immortal, and eternal Being, 
among the works of whose stupendous creation those 
numberless luminaries which we may here behold 
spangling in the sky may possibly appear but as a few 
atoms, opposed to the whole earth which we inhabit? 

Who can look upon the heights of Brooklyn without 
fancying, that, as he gazes, the spires and streets fade 
from his view, while in their stead stern and anxious 
faces rise through the misty air, and amid them the 
majestic form of Washington, with a smile of triumph 



46 MEL OD Y IN SPEE01I. 

just lighting for a moment his care-worn features, at the 
thought of the prize he has snatched from the grasp of 
a proud and exulting enemy ? 

Why 
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect 
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore 
Only among the crowd, and under roofs 
That our frail hands have raised ? 

And who was she, in virgin prime, 

And May of womanhood, 

Whose roses here, unplucked by time, 

In shadowy tints have stood, 

While many a Winter's withering blast 

Hath o'er the dark cold chamber past, 

In which her once resplendent form 

Slumbers to dust beneath the storm ? 

What can be worse 
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned 
In this abhorred deep to utter woe, 
Where pain of unextinguishable fire 
Must exercise us without hope of end; 
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge 
Inexorable, and the torturing hour 
Call us to penance ? 

Several Indefinite Interrogatives Requiring Successive 
Falling Slide. 

Why should we suspend our resistance, why should 
we submit to an authority like this, if we have the right 
and superior force on our side ? 

Why recur to any presumption for the purpose of 
bringing the question to a settlement, when, upon this 
very topic, we are favored with an authoritative mes- 
sage from God ; when an actual embassy has come from 
him, and that on the express errand of reconciliation ; 



THE FALLING SLIDE. 47 

when the records of this embassy have been collected 
into a volume within the reach of all who will stretch 
forth their hand to it ; when the obvious expedient of 
consulting the record is before us ? 

Why was the French Revolution so bloody and de- 
structive ; why was our revolution of 1641 compara- 
tively mild ; why was our revolution of 1688 milder 
still ; why was the American Revolution, considered as 
an internal movement, the mildest of all? 

Where can you find such an assemblage of high vir- 
tues and of great events, as concurred at the death of 
Christ? where so many testimonials given to the dignity 
of the dying person by earth and heaven ? 

W r hat fellowship hath righteousness with unright- 
eousness? and what communion hath light with dark- 
ness ? and what concord hath Christ with Belial ? or 
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and 
what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? 

What was it that moved and held us, the three hun- 
dred reckless, childish boys, who feared the doctor with 
all our hearts, and very little besides in heaven or earth; 
who thought more of our sets in the school than of the 
church of Christ, and put the traditions of Rugby and 
the public opinion of boys in our daily life above the 
laws of God ? 

Who is he, so ignorant of the history of liberty, at 
home and abroad : who is he, yet dwelling in his con- 
templations among the middle ages ; who is he, from 
whose bosom all original infusion of American spirit 
has become so entirely evaporated and exhaled, as that 
he shall put into the mouth of the President of the 
United States the doctrine that the defence of liberty 
naturally results to executive power, and is its peculiar 
duty ? Who is he, that, generous and confiding towards 



48 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

power where it is most dangerous, and jealous only of 
those who can restrain it; who is he, that, reversing the 
order of the State, and upheaving the base, would poise 
the pyramid of the political system upon its apex? 
Who is he, that, overlooking with contempt the guar- 
dianship of the representatives of the people, and with 
equal contempt the higher guardianship of the people 
themselves ; who is he that declares to us, through the 
President's lips, that the security for freedom rests in 
Executive Authority ? Who is he that belies the blood, 
and libels the fame, of his own ancestors by declaring 
that they, with solemnity of form and force of manner, 
have invoked the Executive Power to come to the pro- 
tection of liberty ? Who is he that thus charges them 
with the insanity, or the recklessness, of putting the 
lamb beneath the lion's paw? 

Wherefore rejoice? what conquest brings he home? 

What tributaries follow him to Rome 

To grace in fcaptive bonds his chariot- wheels ? 

Why should I mingle in Fashion's full herd ? 
Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? 
Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd ? 
Why search for delight in the friendship of fools? 

Why did Wolsey, near the sleeps of fate, 

On weak foundations raise the enormous weight ? 

Why, but to sink beneath misfortune's blow 

With louder ruin to the gulf below ? 

What gave great Villiers to the assassin's knife, 

And fixed disease on Harley's closing life? 

What murdered Wentworth, and what exiled Hyde. 

By kings protected and to kings allied ? 

Who in such a night will dare 

To tempt the wilderness? 
And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear 

Our signal of distress? 



THE FALLING SLIDE. 49 

Why is the crowd so great to-day ; 
And why do the people shout "Huzza!" 
And why is yonder felon given 
Alone to feed the birds of heaven ? 

What need we any spur but our own cause 
To prick us to redress ; what other bond 
Than secret Romans that have spoke the word, 
And will not paiter; and what other oath 
Than honesty to honesty engaged 



Interrogatives, with Or Disjunctive. 

Was it fancy, or was it fact? 

Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not ? 

Shall I release unto you Barabbas, or Jesus ? 

Do you question me as an honest man should do, for 
my simple, true judgment? or would you have me 
speak after my custom as a professed tyrant of the sex? 

Is there nothing that whispers to that right honor- 
able gentleman, that the crisis is too big, that the times 
are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and 
everyday means of ordinary corruption ; or are we to 
believe that he has within himself a conscious feeling 
that disqualifies him from rebuking the ill-timed sel- 
fishness of his new allies ? 

Was it a wailing bird of the gloom, 

Which shrieks on the house of woe all night ; 

Or a shivering fiend that flew to a tomb? 

Wilt thou fly 
With laughing Autumn to the Atlantic isles, 
And range with him the Hesperian fields, and see, 
Where'er his fingers touch the fruitful grain, 
The branches shoot with gold ; where'er his step 
Marks the glad soil, the tender clusters grow 
With purple ripeness, and invest each hill 
As with the blushes of the evening sky ; 
4 



50 M EL ODY IN SPEECH. 

Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plume, 
Where, gliding through his daughter's honored shades, 
The smooth Peneus from his glassy flood 
Reflects purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene? 

Interrogatives, with Or Conjunctive. 

Of what use is salt, if it has lost its savor ; or of what 
use is the sword-blade, if it does not cut? 

When saw we thee an-hungered, and fed thee; or 
thirsty, and gave thee drink? 

Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the 
furrow ? or will he harrow the valleys after thee ? Wilt 
thou trust him because his strength is great? or wilt 
thou leave thy labor to him ? Gavest thou the goodly 
wings unto the peacocks ? or wings and feathers unto 
the ostrich? Canst thou draw out leviathan with an 
hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest 
down ? 

But should these credulous infidels, after all, be in 
the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable ; 
from believing it, what harm could ensue? Would it 
render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more un- 
governable, the rich more insolent, or the poor more 
disorderly? Would it make worse parents, or chil- 
dren ; husbands, or wives; masters, or servants? friends, 
or neighbors? Or, would it not make men more virtu- 
ous, and, consequently, more happy, in every situation? 



THE CLOSES. 51 

CHAPTER V. 

DOWNWARD INFLECTIONS — THE CLOSES. 

The closes are two, the perfect and the partial. 

The perfect close is a fall of the voice to the funda- 
mental (or key) note, at the end of a sentence. 

It needs no mark but the period. 

The partial close (marked with the grave accent) is a 
fall of the voice to a point a little above that note, pre- 
paratory to the perfect close. Following are examples 
of both in connection : " The faults opposed to the sub- 
lime are chiefly two\ the frigid and the bombast." 
" Before closing this, I wish to make one observation* ; 
I shall make it once for all." 

PERFECT CLOSE. 

The perfect close is used at the end of declarative 
sentences ; as, " I have told you the truth." " You live 
my friends, in an extraordinary age." 

Note. — The closes come on words, the falling slide embraces a 
whole clause or sentence. 

Imperative sentences are declarations, and follow the 
same rule ; as, " Drink, pretty creature, drink ! " " Give 
me liberty or give me death ! " " Bring forth the 
horse." 

Note. — Upon the last word of a sentence making complete sensej 
the voice should rise slightly before it falls; as, "The earth is 
round ;" unless the special importance of a preceding word makes 
the perfect close a part of the wave of emphasis; as, ''Old men are 
not always wise men." 

The exceptions to this rule are only apparent. For: — 



52 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

(1) A sentence declarative in form may be really an 
indirect interrogative, which requires the waving slide. 
"You could not foresee the reception you met with. 
No." (See chap, vi, Observation 2, p. 61.) 

( 2) A declarative sentence which has apparently come 
to a close, may be so connected in sense with what fol- 
lows as to be incorrectly punctuated with the period, 
and require to be delivered with the bend if there is 
near connection ; with the partial close if the connec- 
tion is slight. The following examples consist each 
of two sentences, which are really one. The first divi- 
sion in each should be followed by the semicolon in- 
stead of the period. The first example is really a 
compact sentence (see chap, ii, e, Observation 1, p. 17) : 
[Though] "I admit that the evidence of this man's 
guilt must ensure his condemnation'. Yet we are to 
consider, and consider well, what we shall do with him 
after condemnation." lC It seemed impossible that any 
one of the innumerable keys could fit a churlish strong- 
box or a prison door\ Store-houses of good things, 
rooms where there were fires, books, gossip and cheer- 
ing laughter — these were their sphere of action." 

(3) A declarative sentence apparently complete may 
have a related sequel expressed or understood, and may, 
therefore, take a rising inflection ; as, " I should know 
that form'." Supply " because its proportions are fa- 
miliar." "Mr. C. That was not necessary to make out 
the libel. Judge B. Pretty near it. though'." That is, 
pretty near it, though not absolutely. 

Partial Close. 

The partial close is used : — 

(1) At the end of every part of a loose sentence (x. p. 
13) except the last, which terminates, of course, with the 



THE CLOSES. 53 

perfect close ; as, " Christianity came prepared for a 
gradual work\ — to perform its labor as sunshine and 
moisture perform theirs\ to bring its ideas to perfection 
among men, as the seed is brought forth to the harvest." 

Observation 1. — These parts should be delivered with a gradual 
fall of the voice, looking toward the final close, except where the 
sentence is too long, in which case the middle part may be deliv- 
ered in a tone nearly level, and the decadence confined to the first 
and the last. 

Observation 2. — When the declarative part of a semi-interroga- 
tive or semi-exclamatory (vn, p. 12, Note) sentence forms with the 
rest a loose sentence, it terminates with the partial close, instead of 
the bend ; as, " We are at the point of a century from the birth of 
Washington^; and what a century it has been !" (See chap, ii, 6, 
Note 2, p. 17.) Where a noun or phrase standing by itself for the 
sake of emphasis, has no grammatical connection with the semi- 
interrogative or semi-exclamatory part, it is followed also by the 
partial close ; as, " The boy\ oh where was he? " "The baptism of 
John v : was it from heaven, or of men ?" 

(2) A parenthesis following a sentence, or a part of 
a sentence, making perfect sense, takes the partial or 
perfect close ; as, " That man went to sea (and who could 
blame him x ?), but he never came back. " " I will there- 
fore chastise him, and release him (for of necessity he 
must release one of them at the feast)." 

Examples for Practice in the Use of the Closes. 
Declarative Sentences, Ending ivith the Perfect Close. 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 

The outward, material world is the shadow of the 
spiritual. 

A hardy, honest peasantry are the glory of an agricul- 
tural country. 

Universities are a notable, respectable product of the 
modern ages. 



54 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

The details of Mr. Clay's life have been eloquently 
given by the accomplished orator of the da}\ 

Declaratives, Waving Slide. 

Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth 
to me. 

Surely, the Lord is in this place. 

They will reverence my son. 

It is surety extraordinary that she should have 
alarmed me so much about your health, and sent me 
such precise instructions to take care of it. 

You [surely] know the history of this man's enter- 
prises : how his doings and observations were among 
the veriest outcasts of humanity ; how he descended 
into prison-houses, and there made himself familiar 
with all that could revolt or terrify in the exhibition 
of our fallen nature; how, for this purpose, he made 
the tour of Europe. 

Declaratives, Bend or Partial Close. 

We should not bestow our faculties on a multitude 
of small and unimportant affairs. This is to waste 
them, without benefit to ourselves or to mankind. We 
should employ them in the pursuit of some great and 
good end. 

If the means were in themselves bad, you would not 
say that the end justified them. Or if the means were 
good, you would not say that they justified all the results 
that might flow from them. 



Declaratives, Bend. 

12 

Maria. Well.* 



Amanda. He saw her and gave the letter. 



* That is, Well', what then ? 



-THE CLOSES. 55 

A. And when he got his answer, he returned. 

M. Well. 

A. And finding no one. came to me. 

M< Well. 

>4. Well; well; what means this well? 

M. It means tell me all. 

It is easy to awaken generous sentiments in privacy ; 
to despise death when there is no danger ; to glow with 
benevolence when there is nothing to be given. 

'Tis pitiful 
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul ; 
To break a jest, when pity should inspire 
Pathetic exhortation ; and to address 
The skittish fancy with facetious tales, 
When sent with God's commission to the heart. 

By Jupiter, 
Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard, 
I would not shave't to-day. 

Pity me, Charmian ; 
But do not speak to me. 

Loose Sentences, given with the Partial and the Perfect Close, 

I speak as to wise men : judge ye what I say. 

Receive us : we have wronged no man, we have cor- 
rupted no man. 

History, as it has been written, is the genealogy of 
princes ; the field-book of conquerors. 

Loose Sentences, Gradual Fall. 

It is the glory of the world that He who formed it, 
dwelt on it; of the air, that He breathed in it; of the 
sun, that it shone on Him ; of the ground, that it bore 
Him ; of the sea, that He walked on it ; of the elements, 



56 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

that they nourished Him ; of the waters, that they re- 
freshed Him ; of us men, that He lived and died among 
us, yea, that He lived and died for us ; that He assumed 
our flesh and blood, and carried it to the highest 
heavens, where it shines as the eternal ornament and 
wonder of the creation of God. 

Time would fail us to recount the measures by which 
the way was prepared for the Revolution : the stamp act; 
its repeal, with the declaration of right to tax America; 
the landing of troops in Boston, beneath the battery of 
fourteen vessels of war, lying broadside to the town, 
with springs on their cables, their guns loaded and 
matches smoking ; the repeated insults, and finally the 
massacre of the fifth of March, resulting from this mili- 
tary occupation, and the Boston Port Bill, by which the 
final catastrophe was hurried on. 

Contrasted faults through all his manners reign . 
Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain • 
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; 
And e'en in penance, planning sins anew. 

He who felt the wrong, and had the might, 
His own avenger, girt himself to slay: 
Beside the path the unburied carcass lay : 
The shepherd by the fountain of the glen, 
Fled, while the robber swept his flocks away, 
And slew his babes. 

To him who in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language : for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. 



THE CLOSES. 57 

In rustic solitude 'tis sweet 

The earliest flowers of spring to greet;* 

The violet from its tomb ; 

The strawberry, creeping at your feet ; 

The sorrel's simple bloom. 
Peace to the just man's memory : let it grow 
Greener with years, and blossom through the flight 
Of ages: let the mimic canvas show 
His calm, benevolent features; let the light 
Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight 
Of all but heaven ; and in the book of fame 
The glorious record of his virtues write, 
And hold it up to men, and bid them claim 
A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame. 
Those ages have no memory, but they left 
A record in the desert: columns strown 
On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft, 
Heaped like a host in battle overthrown ; 
Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone 
Were hewn into a city ; streets that spread 
In the dark earth, where never breath has blown 
Of heaven's sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread 
The long and perilous ways; the cities of the dead. 

Semi-Interrogative and Semi- Exclamatory, Declarative 
Part, given with the Partial Close. 

Praise and thanksgiving are the most delightful busi- 
ness of heaven ; and God grant that they may be our 
greatest delight, our most frequent employment on 
earth ] 

The whole force of this Titanic villany came down 
with a terrific crash upon your ranks, who had so little 
agency in nurturing it ; and what wonder if some should 
have been swept away by the avalanche! 

He would take, however, if they pleased, the other 

* This clause might have been more closely connected with the following 
clauses, had not the author preferred to dwell on each picture. 



58 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

alternative: he would suppose every man charged in 
the estimate really employed, and that it was necessary 
to keep eighty thousand on the defensive, that three 
thousand might be brought into the field : need there 
anything else be urged to prove the ruinous tendency 
of the American war? 

He did not mean absolutely to say, that so many 
were actually in the service; perhaps not a tenth part 
of them could be produced; but the account of them 
was to be seen on the table; and what language could 
properly describe the fraudulent conduct of ministers 
in imposing so grievous a burden on the people without 
necessity ? 

He sacrificed everything he had in the world : what 
could we ask more? 

He who maims my person affects that which medicine 
may remedy ; but what herb has sovereignty over the 
wound of slander? He who ridicules my poverty, or 
reproaches m} 7 profession, upbraids me with that which 
industry may retrieve, and integrity may rectify ; but 
what riches shall redeem the bankrupt fame ? 

Suppose that, out of compliment to the mockers of 
missionary zeal, we relinquished its highest, and, indeed, 
its identifying object ; suppose we confined our efforts 
exclusively to civilization, and consented to send the 
plough and the loom instead of the cross ; and admit- 
ting that, upon this reduced scale of operation, we were 
as successful as could be desired, till we had even raised 
the man of the woods into the man of the city, and ele- 
vated the savage into the sage, — what, I ask, have we 
effected, viewing man, as, with the Xew Testament in 
our hands, we must view him in the whole range of his 
existence ? 

So thought Palmyra ; where is she ! 



THE CLOSES. 59 

Hard lot of man, to toil for the reward 

Of virtue, and yet lose; but wherefore hard? 

He clothes the lily, feeds the dove ; 

The meanest insect feels his care : 
And shall not man confess his love — 

Man, his offspring and his heir? 

Ye call these red-browed brethren 

The insects of an hour, 
Crushed like the noteless worm amidst 

The regions of their power ; 
Ye drive them from their fathers' lands ; 

Ye break of faith the seal : 
But can ye from the court of Heaven 

Exclude their last appeal? 

It was the pleasant harvest-time 
When cellar- bins are closely stowed, 
And garrets bend beneath their load, 

And the old swallow-haunted barns — 
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams 
Through which the moted sunlight streams — 

Are filled with summer's ripened stores, 
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, 
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.* 

Parenthesis, Partial or Perfect Close. 

The next night we were introduced at the Prince of 
Craon's assembly (he has the chief power in the Grand 
Duke's absence). 

Let the bishop be one that ruleth well his owm house : 
having his children in subjection: (for if a man know 
not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care 
of the church of God?) not a novice, lest being lifted 
up w T ith pride he fall into condemnation of the devil. 

* It is proper to give the second, third, seventh and eighth lines with the 
rising slide, but the effect is better with the partial close. 



60 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

The air was mild as summer, all corn was off the 
ground, and the skylarks were singing aloud (by the 
way, I saw not one at Keswick, perhaps because the 
place abounds in birds of prey). 

A certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, 
the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that 
Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped 
his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) 
Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, " Lord, be- 
hold, he whom thou lovest is sick." 

Know, then, this truth (enough for man to know) :* 
Virtue alone is happiness below. 

She was one 
Fit for the model of a statuary 
(A race of mere impostors when all's done: 
I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, 
Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal). 



CHAPTER VI. 

COMBINED INFLECTIONS WAVE OF ACCENT AND WAVING 

SLIDE. 

The Wave of Accent. 

Accentual waves are those slight undulations of the 
voice in ordinary reading and speaking which result 
from the greater pressure applied to a particular sylla- 
ble, distinguishing it from others in the same word. 
They may be readily detected b^v the ear in any sentence 

* The bend is proper after this parenthesis, as it does not make complete 
sense, but the partial close makes it more emphatic. 



WA VE OF ACCENT AND WA VING SLIDE. 61 

delivered without emphasis ; for instance, " Yet because 
of his importunity, he will arise and give ^^^ ^% 
him as many as he needeth." 

Observation. — This uneraphatic delivery with accentual waves 
is, in most of the books, confounded with monotone, which is only- 
attained by the suppression of the accents ; as in the line, " The wind 
howled dismally round the old pile." 

The Waving Slide. 

The waving slide is a sweep of the voice which carries 
it above the level of the sentence, causes it 
to descend again to or below the level, and (^-v^^) 
brings it back to or above the level. 

It is used in the delivery of indirect interrogatives 
(viii, p. 13) ; as, " He did not deny his share in the un- 
happy transaction'?" "You are not angry, sure'?" 
(See chap, vn, Effect of Emphasis on Other Inflections : — 
on Waving Slide, p. 78.) 

Note. — Even though a sentence contains an indirect interroga- 
tive, the voice will fall, if there is a strong emphasis ; as, "You are 
not going v ?" 

Observation 1. — In a series of indirect interrogatives, the last 
and sometimes all but the first, are delivered with the falling slide; 
as, Captain. "Give it here, my honest fellow." Bowling. "You 
will take it'?" Capt. "To be sure I will." Bowl. "And will 
smoke it v ? " Capt. " That I will." Bowl. " And will not think 
of giving me anything in return for it\" 

Note.— With the first question you are not quite certain how it will be re- 
ceived. By the answer you are made more sure, still more by the successive 
answers ; falling inflections will, therefore, be the proper ones. 

Observation 2. — Many indirect interrogatives may be delivered 
either with the falling or the waving slide, according to whether the 
interrogative or declarative predominates in the question, both 
equally admitting of the little supplementary question understood 
which seems to characterize and account for this form of interroga- 



62 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

tive (vni, Note, p. 13); as, "Rosalind is your love's name v ?" 
"Yes, just." (" Is it?" understood.) "He would not receive you, 
then N ? " (" Did you say ? " understood.) 

Note. — The falling slide should he used if the answer is almost certain; 
the more doubt, or pretence of doubt, there is, the greater necessity for the 
waving slide. 

Observation 3. — A circumstance following an indirect interroga- 
tive is delivered with the same slide; as, "'Then you never knew 
the history of the young man?' said the other to him." 

General Remark. — Exclamatory sentences (vn, p. 
12) are subject to all the rules, with their exceptions, 
which affect their corresponding declarative or interrog- 
ative sentences. The exclamation point merely shows 
that there is emotion, intensity, or abruptness in the 
sentence. This rule is to be understood merely of 
inflection : the peculiar emotion to be infused into 
the several examples is another matter. 

Examples for Practice in the Use of the Waving 
Slide. 

Indirect Interrogative^. 

They were gone on your arrival ? 

Give me that hand of yours to kiss ? 

You will convey my message ? 

Surely, sir, I have seen you before ? 

He went to Europe after you saw him on that occa- 



sion 



He admitted the validity of the deed when you pro- 
duced it? 

And the younger said unto his father, Father, give 
me the portion of goods that falleth to me ? 

And she said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the 
crumbs which fall from their master's table? 



WAVE OF ACCENT AND WAVING SLIDE. 63 

Grant me permission to go there this once? 

Mother, let me stay at home with you to-day? 

Whence that doubt? exclaimed Morton. You do 
not suppose the statements entirely unfounded ? 

Hard state of things that one may believe one's fears, 
bat cannot rely upon one's hopes ? 

How is this, my father ? 



Indirect Interrogatives, Series. 

My dear, you have some pretty beads there ? 

Yes, papa. 

And you seem to be vastly pleased with them ? 

Doctor. You are not a glutton, sir ? 

Patient. God forbid, sir! I'm one of the plainest 
men living in the west. 

Doctor. Then perhaps you are a drunkard ? 

Doctor. You take a little pudding, then ? 

Patient. Yes. 

Doctor. And afterwards some cheese ? 

Patient. Yes. 

Doctor. You west-country people generally take a 
glass of Highland whiskey after dinner ? 

Patient. Yes, we do. 

Rosalind. You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, 
You will bestow her on Orlando here ? [To the Duke.~\ 

Duke. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with 
her. 

Rosalind. And you say you will have her when I 
bring her ? [To Orlando.'] 

Orlando. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king. 

Rosalind. You say you'll marry me, if I be willing ? 

[To Phebe.] 



64 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

Phebe. That would I, should I die the hour after. 

Rosalind. You say that you'll have Phebe, if she 
will? [To SUmus.] 

Silvius. Though to have her and death were both 
one thing. 

Indirect Interrogatives, Falling or Waving Slide. 

Honor hath no skill in surgery, then ? 
To strike your toe with a tight shoe on, then, rather 
disturbs your equanimity, my good friend ? 

A nobleman sleeps here to-night; see that 

All is in order in the damask chamber; 

Keep np the stove; I will myself to the cellar; 

And Madame Idenstein 

Shall furnish forth the bed apparel ; for 

To say the truth, they are marvellous scant of this 

Within the palace precincts since his Highness 

Left it some dozen years ago ; and then, 

His Excellency will sup, doubtless ? 

Exclamatory Sentences. 
Declarative. 

Our brethren are already in the field ! 

How pleasing is the prospect ! 

"Woe to those who have spilled this precious blood ! 

There goes one who belonged to the army of Italy ! 

The next gale that sweeps from the north may bring 
to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! 

My own flesh and blood to rebel! 

Illustrious as are your merits, yet far, oh ! very far 
distant be the day when any inscription shall bear your 
name or any tongue pronounce its eulogy ! 

Ah ! that deceit should steal such gentle shapes, 
And with a visor hide deep vice ! 



WA VE OF ACCENT AND WA VING SLIDE. 65 

O impotent estate of human life, 
Where hope and fear maintain eternal strife ; 
Where fleeting joy does lasting doubt inspire, 
And most we question what we most admire ! 

Strike till the last armed foe expires ; 
Strike for your altars and your fires ; 
Strike for the green graves of your sires, 
God, and your native land ! 

O liberty ! heaven's choice prerogative !* 
True bond of law ! thou social soul of property ! 
Thou breath of reason ! life of life itself! 
For thee the valiant bled. O sacred liberty ! 

Definite Interrogative. 

Are you mad ! 

Has it come to this ! 

I am charged with being an emissary of France : an 
emissary of France ! f 

Sell my country's independence to France! and for 
what? 

Gracious God ! shall the horrors which surround the 
informer, the ferocity of his countenance and the terrors 
of his voice, cast such a wide and appalling influence 
that none dare approach and save the victim which he 
marks for ignominy and death ! 

What ! might Rome then have been taken, if these 
men who were at our gates had not wanted courage for 
the attempt ! Rome taken whilst I was consul ! 

* These are all eompellatives, and would naturally be given with the bend. 
If strongly emphasized, and thereby made exclamatory, they should be 
given with the falling inflection ; if close connection is desired, with the 
rising inflection. 

f If read as simple declaratives, the falling slide should be used in both 
clauses. If the last clause is given as a definite interrogative, it should rise. 
("You don't mean to say an emissary of France, do you?'') ; if as an excla- 
mation, it should fall, unless intenser emotion is to be expressed, when the 
rising slide should be used. 

5 



66 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

Mr. H. And why were they overworked, pray ? 

Stew. To carry water, sir. 

Mr. H. To carry water ! And what were they carry- 
ing water for? 

Stew. Sure, sir, to put out the fire. 

Mr.H. Fire! What fire? 

Stew. Oh, sir, your father's house is burned down to 
the ground. 

Mr. H. My father's house burned down ! And how 
came it set on fire? 

Stew. I think, sir, it must have been the torches. 

Mr. H. Torches ! What torches ? 

Stew. At your mother's funeral. 

Mr. H. My mother dead ! 

Look upon my boy as though I guessed it; 
Guessed the trial thou would'st have me make ; 
Guessed it instinctively ! 

In definite In terroga t i ve. 

How wretched the condition of that infatuated man! 

How different would our lot have been this day, both 
as men and citizens, had the Revolution failed of suc- 
cess? 

How precious must that liberty be, which could 
prompt a great people to suffer their native prince to 
wander in exile ; which could move them to resist every 
attempt to replace him on the throne ! 

What landscapes I read in the primrose's looks, 
And what pictures of pebbled and minnowy brooks, 
In the vetches that tangled their shore! 

Who ever thought, 
In such a homely piece of stuff, to see 
The mighty senate's tool ! 



THE WAVE OF E3IPHASIS. 67 

But oh ! how altered was its sprightlier tone, 
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, 
Her bow across her shoulder flung, 
Her buskins gemmed with morning'dew, 
Blew an inspiring air, that dell and thicket rung! 

What affections the violet awakes ! 
What loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes, 
Can the wild water-lily restore ! 

Indirect Interrogative. 

Surely they were indignant at this treatment: surely 
the air rings with reproaches upon a man who has thus 
made them stake their reputation upon a falsehood, and 
then gives them little less than the lie direct to their 
assertions ! 

You would not have me make a trial of my skill upon 
my child ! 

Sure they lie 
That say thou cam'st a secret spy ! 

Thou wear a lion's hide ! doff it for shame, 
And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs ! 

We undertook to mediate for the queen. 

To mediate for the queen ? — You undertook ? — 

Wherein concerned it you ? 



CHAPTER VII. 

COMBINED INFLECTIONS— THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 

Emphasis is an inflection used in the delivery of a 
word or words, to discriminate the idea it contains from 
all related ideas, expressed or understood. 



bo MELODY IN SPEECH. 

Note. — Just as when walking on a plain, if you come to a hill, it 
arrests your attention, so when the voice is lifted on an emphatic word, 
attention is called to the latter. 

To illustrate : " The animal you see is a horse." In 
this sentence, horse is emphasized to exclude the idea 
of any other animal ; that is, it is not a cow or a dog. 
u It is a bay horse ; " that is, it is not a black or a gray 
horse, etc. 

Note. — To tell whether to discriminate or not the pupil may ask 
questions. This will generally show whether a simple statement is re- 
quired in answer or an affirmative against a negative (expressed 
or implied) ; as, " Is that Mr. Smith ? " " Yes, it is Mr. Smith " (sim- 
ple statement). " Is that Mr. Smith?" " No, it is Mr. Brown " (dis- 
crimination). Mere enumeration requires no emphasis ; as, " Do you 
see anything over there?" "Yes, I see a horse, a carriage, a dog, 
etc." But, "Do you see that woodpile?" "No, it isn't a woodpile, it 
is a haystack." 

As already implied, this discrimination is sometimes 
openly expressed, in which case the relation is suffi- 
ciently plain ; for example, " He is the propitiation for 
our sins ; not for ours only, but also for the sins of the 
whole world." u The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our 
stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." " You 
w T ere paid to fight against Alexander, not to rail at 
him." 

But the same affirmation, as against an implied nega- 
tive, may be detected in every case of emphasis. For 
instance, " Hence ! (not linger here) home ! (not loiter 
about the streets) you idle creatures ! Get you home ! " 
"Whose is this image and superscription? They say 
unto him, Csesarh." (Not somebody's else.) Petruchio. 
" I say it is the moon that shines so bright." (Not the 
sun.) Katharine. " I know it is the sun that shines so 
bright." (Not the moon.) 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 69 

Observation 1. — The enforcing function of emphasis is less im- 
portant than the discriminating function. The latter is essential. 
There can be no true emphasis without it. Hence emphasis is here 
treated as inflection, not stress. Stress, that is to say, mere force of 
utterance, is not true emphasis, — a principle, the disregard of which 
on the stage, the platform, and the pulpit, has given rise to the preva- 
lent vice of yelling and mouthing false inflections and substituting 
indiscriminate noise for the intelligent and delicate distinctions which 
could be conveyed by genuine emphasis. The best cure, or beginning 
of cure, for such abuse is the view here taken of the emphatic waves 
of inflection. Stress and retarded rate are not essential to emphasis, 
though they naturally accompany it. The discriminating office is in 
the emphatic wave exclusively ; which, indeed, itself implies an in- 
crease of stress and a retardation of time, both intensified by the in- 
stinctive desire of the speaker to distinguish by every means the 
important word. The inquirer may easily assure himself by experi- 
ment that a word can be emphasized by inflection without increase 
of stress, while no access of force can emphasize, in the absence of 
the discriminating inflection. 

Observation 2. — The emphatic word may be louder, may be 
slower than the rest of the sentence, but this is not essential. That 
■which makes the emphasis is (critically, technically speaking) inflec- 
tion. 

Observation 3.— Pupils are often puzzled by feeling that the 
voice goes up even when the rule is to turn down. This is because 
the voice does go up (if the inflection is given correctly) before it 
turns down. 

The waving inflection of emphasis culminates on a 
syllable of the emphatic word, and is limited in extent 
to the division of sense to which that word belongs. In 
character it is like the waving slide ; but its office is 
different. 

Emphasis thus falling on a syllable may change the 
seat of accent ; as, " I did not ascend, I descended." 
But this is only when a syllable is to be discriminated. 
Ordinarily the emphasis culminates on the normally 
accented syllable of the emphatic word. 



70 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

As it is the office of emphasis to discriminate the 
idea contained in a certain word from all other ideas 
related to it, it follows that this discrimination, once 
made, need not (as a general rule) be repeated. The 
succeeding sentence or clause presents an advanced 
thought, which, in its turn, needs discrimination; and 
we are led to the principle, that the emphasis must fall 
upon the word that contains the new idea: hence; 

Emphasis must not be repeated on the same word or 
idea occurring in the same connection. 

To illustrate : in the sentence, " The Queen of the 
South came from the uttermost parts of the earth to 
hear the wisdom of Solomon, and, behold, a greater than 
Solomon is here," — it would be a fault to emphasize the 
word " Solomon " a second time : in the last clause a 
new idea is introduced in the word " greater," which 
takes the emphasis. 

To this rule there are several exceptions. Thus : — 

(1) When the emphatic word is repeated, for the 
purpose of making it more emphatic, the emphasis 
is repeated, but generally distinguished by a higher or 
lower emphatic wave ; as, " They tell us to be moderate; 
but they, they are to revel in profusion." "Arm ! Arm ! 
it is —it is the cannon's opening roar ! " 

(2) Sometimes emphasis is repeated for the purpose 
of increasing its force by mere reiteration ; as, tl I should 
say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first 
characteristic of all men any way heroic." 

Note. — a. Stating a tiling over again in exactly the same tone and 
pitch, stamps it on the mind. When the same wave is repeated with 
exactly the same vocal effect, it implies in the speaker calm power, 
perfect self-control. But if a mother should say to her boy, "Now 
if you do that again I shall whip you ! " then on a still higher em- 
phatic wave, " Mind, I shall whip you!" this would show excite- 
ment, passion, but not real power. 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 71 

b There should be a pause before the second emphasis, to draw- 
attention particularly to the thought. 

(3) Sometimes the repeated word is used in a new- 
sense, and actually requires a discriminating emphasis; 
as, "A fool vt\lh. judges, among fools, a, judge." 

(4) Emphasis, like any other inflection, may be re- 
peated to indicate apposition of words or phrases ; that 
is, the terms in apposition receive similar inflections ; 
as, " A hoop of gold, a paltry ring ! " 

(5) Cumulative emphasis (the form in which the dis- 
criminating function is least, and the enforcing function 
greatest) involves repetition ; as, " I tell you, I— will — 
not — do — it" 

The wave of emphasis, in declarative or declarative 
exclamatory sentences, begins at the first pause* pre- 
ceding the emphatic word, and extends to the first pause 
succeeding it, unless another emphasis intervene; in 
which case the new emphasis follows the same law, and 
the process continues until a pause, either of perfect or 
imperfect sense, is reached ; as, " The Americans may 
become faithful friends of the English, but subjects, 
never." 

In illustrating this example, let the following diagrams 
represent the three emphatic waves : — 




The first, beginning with the sentence, gradually rises 
to the emphatic word " friends " : here it culminates, 
and descends to the first pause, at the word " English", 

* "Pause," in this connection, is to be considered quite independently of 
punctuation. 



72 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

where it turns upward, coinciding with the bend (which 
is due at that point). The second follows the same pro- 
cess, though more briefly, with the words " but sub- 
jects". The third is developed entirely on the single 
word "never", turning downward, however, partly to 
give greater intensity to the emphasis (6, p. 74), and 
partly to coincide with the perfect close (a, p. 74). The 
different degrees of eminence in these different waves 
will also be remarked ; the rise of the sweep being less 
and less unto the end. 

As instances of the intervention of a second emphasis 
between the emphatic word and the succeeding pause, 
take the threat of Cassius to Brutus, and the retort of 
the latter, in Shakespeare's "Julius Csesar": — 

higher 
1 2 

"I may do that I shall be sorry for." 
lower 
1 2 

" You have done that you should be sorry for." 

Note. — Let the pupil here practice the wave, first suppressing the 
second emphasis, and afterwards supplying it. 

Observation 1. — It follows from this limitation of the wave of 
emphasis, that when the emphatic word is very near the pause, pre- 
ceding or succeeding, the adjacent portion of the wave will be very 
short,* sometimes so much so, that its waving character will be 
scarcely perceptible; as, "Other misfortunes may be borne, or their 
effects overcome." "Though he will not rise and give him because 
he is his friend, yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give 
him as many as he needeth." 

Observation 2. — When the emphatic word is immediately pre- 
ceded and followed by a pause, the wave is developed on that word 
alone ; as, "Necesstiy' is the mother of invention." " War' is the law 
of violence; peace' , the law of love." il Sldl, it may be well for 
some proud men to remember," etc. 

* If the pupil doubts whether an emphatic word has the curved form, be- 
cause the curve is very short, let him drawl it out, and he will find that it 
makes a sweep. 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 73 

Observation 3. — The subject, especially when it consists of a 
single word in the beginning of a sentence, should, as a rule, be sep- 
arated from its verb by a slight pause. 

To this rule there are several exceptions. Thus :— 

(1) When the emphasis falls on the last, or nearly the 
last, word of the division, followed by a circumstance, 
the wave is developed on the circumstance, notwith- 
standing the pause; as, "But youth, sir, is not my only 
crime." "Wait, gushing life, oh, wait my love's re- 
turn ! " " Had you been placed in similar circum- 
stances, you would have felt it too, perhaps." When 
one or more circumstances precede the emphasis, the 
wave includes them, notwithstanding the punctuation; 
as, " It is then, Sir, upon the principle of this measure — 
that we are at issue." 

(2) In sentences having correlative parts, with the 
logical order of the parts reversed, when the last, or 
nearly the last, word of the first part is emphasized, 
the wave is developed on both parts, notwithstanding 
the pause ; * as, 

" No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet, 
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet." 

(3) The emphatic wave is sometimes arrested at its 
culminating point, and developed in the falling slide. 

This occurs in the following cases : — 

* Prof. Raymond was not sure that this rule applies in every case. He told 
the class that the following statement is probably correct :— 

"If the reversion of parts obliterates the rhetorical pause, the rule will 
apply, but not if the pause is retained. 
The rule applies in the two following examples :— 
Logical order,—' If I go to-morrow, you can go.' 
Logical order reversed, — ' You can go if I go to-morrow.' 
The rule does not apply in the two following examples :— 
Logical order,— ' Though a professed Catholic, he imprisoned the pope.' 
Logical order reversed,— He imprisoned the pope, though a professed 
Catholic.'"— B. C. 



74 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

a. When the emphasis falls upon a word at or just 
preceding partial or perfect close ; as, " Delicacy leans 
more to feeling ; correctness, more to reason and judg- 
ment." "If the gentleman 'provoke war, he shall have 
war." "In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage 
over the honorable gentleman." 

b. When the emphasis is very strong (so strong that 
it carries down with it all that follows) ; as, " It is not 
true that he played the traitor to his country in the hour 
of trial." " I say it is the moon that shines so bright." 

c. When the emphatic word represents an object used 
in illustration or comparison, with like, as, and other 
similar words ; as, " Charity, like the sun\ brightens 
every object on which it shines." " She sat, like patience 
on a monument, smiling at grief." 

d. When the emphatic word is preceded by an inten- 
sive particle, expressed or understood ; as, " Though 
they lost the esteem of the world, though their nearest 
and dearest relatives forsook them, nay, though even 
the sanctity of life was invaded, yet they held to their 
faith unshaken." fi If they had wealth, if they had 
[even] a competency, many think they could be happy." 

e. When the emphatic word is the last of a series ; as, 

" Tell thou the silent sky, 
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God." 

Note. — For purposes of marking, the usual underscoring of the 
emphatic word is sufficient to show the culmination of the wave, 
while the acute or grave accent at the end will indicate its limit, 
and its upward or downward development. 

CONCENTRATION OF EMPHASIS. 

One of the most common faults in reading is the 
multiplication of emphasis. As the office of this inrlec- 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 75 

tion is to discriminate, it follows, that the more words 
there are that receive this mark, the less discrimination 
there will be ; and we are driven to the paradoxical con- 
clusion that a sentence over-emphasized to make it 
strong must be thereby weakened. Not ever}^ word to 
which this distinction belongs in theory should receive 
it in practice. It will be found to conduce both to 
strength and euphony to confine the emphasis to as few 
words as possible in the sentence — if it may be, even to 
a single word. 



Note. — Even if there are other emphases in the sentence, the 
strong emphasis can almost always be concentrated upon one word. 

Among the expedients by which this end may be at- 
tained are the following : — 

(1) In a series (xiv, p. 15) consisting of two or more 
words or phrases connected together, and equally em- 
phatic in theory, the emphasis is deferred till the last; 
as, " When or where I saw it, I am unable to say." " Its 
tidings, whether of peace or woe, are the same to the 
poor, the ignorant, and the weak, as to the rich, the wise, 
and the powerful." 

(2) When the emphatic word has a direct bearing on 
an expression immediately following, the emphasis is 
carried forward to some point in that expression. 

Such an expression may be : — 

a. An inseparable adjunct (iv, p. 11 ; vi, Note, p. 12) ; as, 
" The highest art of the mind is to possess itself with 
tranquility in danger." The emphasis is theoretically 
on "tranquility," but is deferred to " danger," because 
of the close connection. 

b. A restrictive clause (vi, p. 12)*; as, " He who loves 

* It docs not matter very much which word in a restrictive clause is empha- 
sized ; it should be the one that contains the special idea. 



76 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

the bristle of bayonets only sees in their glitter what be- 
forehand he felt in his heart." " A man eager to learn 
will apply himself to study." " Poets are by no means 
wingless angels, fed with ambrosia plucked from Olym- 
pus, or manna rained down from heaven." 

c. The latter part of an extended logical subject (in, 
p. 11); as, "To mourn deeply for the death of another 
loosens from myself the petty desire of life." 

The increase of force and melody by the deferring of 
emphasis, is further illustrated in the treatment of com- 
plicated antithesis. 

We have observed that all emphasis implies contrast 
of assertion with negation ; but sometimes one emphasis 
is contrasted with another. This occurs in the rhetori- 
cal figure called antithesis (xv, p. 15), from which this 
species of emphasis derives its name. 

Sometimes this contrast lies between single terms ; as, 
" We must take heed not only to what we say, but to 
what we do" 

Sometimes two sets of contrasted terms are involved ; 
as, " Without were fightings, within were fears." 

Sometimes the contrast is triple, and even quadruple. 
The following is an example of the former : — 

" He raised a mortal to the skies; 
She drew an angel damn." 

To mark all these contrasts with the voice would pro- 
duce a rude and jerky effect. This may be avoided by 
suppressing some of the earlier emphases, or rather by 
deferring them until they are retrospectively suggested 
by the words emphasized in the latter portion of the sen- 
tence. For example: — 

" Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel, but cruel 
because it is wrong." If we defer the emphasis which 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 77 

theoretically falls upon the word " wrong " in the first 
member, we relieve the sentence in point of euphony; 
and we recover the emphasis again when it is inferen- 
tially suggested by the corresponding words in the 
second member. Again: — 

" Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled." 

The same ends are attained by deferring the emphasis 
on " thou " in the first part. Once more : — 

" The difference between a madman and a fool is that 
the former reasons justly from false data, and the latter 
erroneously from just data." Defer the emphasis on 
" former " and "justly." 

Note. — a. Both parts of a contrast should not be suppressed. 

b. The first member is the one to be suppressed. 

c. Rarely more than three members should be emphasized. 

d. If there are three antitheses, the emphasis should come gener- 
ally on the last of each set. 

EFFECT OF EMPHASIS ON OTHER INFLECTIONS. 

It may be generally remarked that the influence of a 
strong emphasis is supreme in the sentence. It domi- 
nates all other inflections, and subordinates all rules to 
its imperative demands, even the rule of accent; as, 
" He must increase, but I must decrease." 

The following are some of the specific modifications 
which it causes : — 

(1) Of the bend:— 

When emphasis occurs on a word, or j ust before a word, 
which should be delivered with the bend, that inflection 
coincides with the upward turn of the emphatic wave; 

as, "Though deep', yet clear\" ^ 

" Rather begoocY than seem to be\" ^ / ^^ - > >.) 



78 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

(2) Of the rising slide: — 

The effect of emphasis on the rising slide is to create 
a slight dip in the general direction of the voice ; as, 
" Believe ye that I am able to do this? " (_ -_- ?) 

(3) Of the falling slide :— 

Emphasis interrupts the falling slide by a momentary 
rise, which is followed by a continuation of the descent 
to the close, unless another emphasis intervene; as, 
"Who touched me?" "By what authority doest thou 
these things ; or who gave thee this authority ? " 

"^> 

(4) Of the waving slide : — 

This inflection, which is used in indirect interroga- 
tives, is the same in vocal effect as the wave of empha- 
sis : it culminates on the accented syllable of the em- 
phatic word, and is limited to the division of sense in 
which that word is comprised ; as, " You sato him after 
the event occurred' ? " / ^*~ / ? j 

(5) Of the closes : — 

When emphasis coincides with the partial or the per- 
fect close, or occurs upon a word just preceding them, 
the wave is converted into a falling slide ; as, " Nor is 
he willing to stop there"." "Art may diminish', but can- 
not remove the difficultyV 

Examples for Practice in the Use of the Wave 
of Emphasis. 

The Xeio Idea. 

This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beel- 
zebub, the prince of devils. 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 79 

To die ; — to sleep ; — 
To sleep ! perchance to dream ! — Ay, there's the rub ; 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause. 

Portia. A quarrel, ho, already? What's the matter? 
Gratiano. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring 

That she did give me. . . . 
Portia. You were to blame, I must be plain with you. 

I gave my love a ring, etc. . . . 
Bassanio. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off 

And swear I lost the ring defending it. [Aside.] 
Gratiano. My lord Bassjinio gave his ring away 

Unto the judge, etc. . . . 
Portia. What ring gave you, my lord ? 

... I will ne'er come in your bed 
Until I see the ring. 

Bassanio. Sweet Portia, 

If you did know to whom I gave the ring, 

If you did know for whom I gave the ring, 

And would conceive for what I gave the ring, 

And how unwillingly I left the ring, 

Where nought would be accepted but the ring, 

You would abate the strength of your displeasure. 

Emphasis repeated, to Intensify. 

We must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! 

Jesus therefore said unto them, " Whom seek ye ? " 
They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." . . . Then 
asked he them again, " Whom seek ye ? " And they 
said, "Jesus of Nazareth." 

" He my master ! He my master ! " he continued in 
louder tones, with his finger still pointed, and retreating 
backward, while his air and manner indicated the in- 
tensest abhorrence. " He my master ! " he a third time 



80 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

cried, raising his voice to a higher key, while he re- 
treated backward to the very lobby. 

the grave ! the grave ! it buries every error, covers 
every defect, extinguishes every resentment. 

Hold ! hold ! you wound me ! 

So much the worse — 'tis lost ! 'tis lost ! — Heaven is 
to me the severest part of hell. 

Blow, blow, thou winter wind ! 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky ! 

Arm ! way for remorse ! arm ! arm ! 
Free way for vengeance ! 

Down, slave ! before the governor. 
Down, down ! and beg for mercy. 

Hand and voice, 
Awake ! awake ! and thou, my heart. 
Awake ! 

Come back, come back, Horatius ! 
Loud cried the Fathers, all ; 
Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 
Back, ere the ruin fall ! 

O Swedes ! Swedes ! 

Are ye men, and will ye suffer this ? 

Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree, 
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree, 
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty ! guilty/ 

Mere Reiteration. 

Newton was a Christian ! Newton, whose mind burst 
forth from the fetters cast by nature upon our finite 
conceptions; Newton, whose science was truth, and 
the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philoso- 
phy; Newton, who carried the line and rule to the 



THE WA VE OF EMPHASIS. 81 

utmost barriers of creation, and explored the principles 
by which, no doubt, all created matter is held together 
and exists. 

If a man were present now at the field of slaughter, 
and were to inquire for what they were fighting, " Fight- 
ing ! " would be the answer; "they are not fighting; 
they are pausing." Why is that man expiring ? why 
is that ether writhing with agony? what means this im- 
placable fury ? The answer must be, " You are quite 
wrong, sir; you deceive yourself: they are not fighting; 
do not disturb them ; they are merely pausing ! This 
man is not expiring with agony ; that man is not dead ; 
he is only pausing." 

It is this accursed American war that has led us, step 
by step, into all our present misfortunes and national 
disgraces. What was the cause of our wasting forty 
millions of money, and sixty thousand lives? The 
American war ! " What was it that produced the French 
rescript, and a French war? The American war! What 
was it that produced the Spanish manifesto, and the 
Spanish war ? The American war ! What was it that 
armed forty thousand men in Ireland with the argu- 
ments carried on the points of forty thousand bayo- 
nets ? The American war ! For what are we about to 
incur an additional debt of twelve or fourteen millions? 
This accursed, cruel, diabolical American war! 

What was it, fellow-citizens, which gave to our Lafay- 
ette his spotless fame? The love of liberty. What 
has consecrated his memory in the hearts of good 
men? The love of liberty. What nerved his youth- 
ful arm with strength, and inspired him, in the morn- 
ing of his days, with sagacity and counsel? The living 
love of liberty. 

6 



82 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

Emphatic Wave, its Limitations. 

You wronged yourself, to write in such a case. 

You have done that you should be sorry for. [In this 
and the three following examples, note the intervention 
of another emphasis between the emphatic word and 
the pause.] 

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy 
brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in 
thine own eye ? 

The good man loves himself too well to lose an estate 
by gaming, and his neighbor too well to win one. 

Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are more 
applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other 
assemblies than this. 

When I took occasion, Mr. President, ten days ago, to 
throw out some ideas with respect to the policy of the 
government in relation to the public lands, nothing cer- 
tainly could have been further from my thoughts, than 
that I should be compelled to throw myself again upon 
the indulgence of the Senate. 

No! I'm surprised at that; 
Where I come from, it is the common chat. 

And do you now put on your best attire ? 
And do you now cull out a holiday ? 
And do you now strew flowers in his way 
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood ? 

Blaze, with your serried columns! 
I will not bend the knee ! 

Emphasis with Falling Slide; at, or just preceding, Partial 
or Perfect Close. 

Philosophy makes us wiser, Christianity makes us 
better, men. 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 83 

Christians have cast away the spirit, in settling the 
precise dignity, of their Master. 

Every country where man is struggling to recover 
his birthright, has lost a benefactor, a patron, in La- 
fayette. 

Force decided all things. 

The value of the graphic art consists in its being a 
medium for the acquisition of knowledge, and for the 
communication of it. 

When the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his 
parables, they perceived that he spake of them. 

Sprung from a line of kings, a throne is my natural 
seat ; but I strive, too, that it shall be, while I sit upon 
it, an honored, unpolluted seat. 

A fisher's joy is to destroy — thine office is to save. 

Yes, Cassius ! and from henceforth, 

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 

He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. 

Strong Emphasis , Falling Slide. 

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor 
unto him that fell among thieves? 

Infected be the air whereon they ride ! 

Accursed be the tongue that tells me so ! 

Discord, discord is the ruin of this city ! The eternal 
disputes between the senate and the people are the sole 
cause of our misfortunes. 

But I hear it rung continually in my ears, " The pre- 
amble ! What will become of the preamble, if you re- 
peal this tax ? " 

Thou shalt live so beset, so hemmed in, so watched, 
by the vigilant guards I have placed around thee, that 
thou shalt not stir a foot against the republic without 



84 MEL OD Y JN SPEECH. 

my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy 
slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whis- 
per. Thou shalt be seen and heard when thou dost not 
dream of a witness near. 

Then, patriotism is eloquent: then, self-devotion is 
eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deduc- 
tions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the 
dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from 
the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole 
man onward, right onward to his object, — this, this is 
eloquence; or rather, it is something greater and higher 
than all eloquence : it is action, noble, sublime, god- 
like action. 

Have the walls ears? Great Jove ! I wish they had; 
And tongues too, to bear witness to my oath 
And tell it to all Eome. 

Hear me, bold heart I the whole gross blood of Rome 
Could not atone my wrongs ! 

And if thou said'st I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here. 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 
Lord Angus, thou hast lied. 

Emphasis, Denoting Comparison. 

Man cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down. 
. Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover; and, 
like Dante, he had been unfortunate in ambition and in 
love. 

But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is 
like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling 
unto their fellows. 

He that prays to God with an angry, that is, with a 
troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires 



THE WA VE OF EMPHASIS. 85 

into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the 
outquarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison 
to be wise in. 

All of them shall wax old like a garment ; as a ves- 
ture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. 

The appearance of them is as the appearance of 
horses ; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the 
noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they 
leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the 
stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. 

'Tis heaven's commanding trumpet long and loud, 
Like Sinai's thunder pealing from the cloud. 

So the struck eagle stretched upon the plain, 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, 
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart. 

Emphasis, Preceded by Intensive Particle. 

It is an impression which we cannot rid ourselves of 
if we would, when sitting by the body of a friend, that 
he has still a consciousness of our presence. 

Even after the whole trial had ended, Sir Francis 
proclaimed aloud to his constituents that all the minis- 
ters ought to be hanged. 

Even if the country itself should suffer, he declared 
that his feelings as a patriot must give way to his pro- 
fessional obligations. 

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. 

Though hand join in hand, yet shall not the wicked 
go unpunished. 

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty ; 
For in ray youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellions liquors in my blood. 



86 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

Though homely be his garb, though coarse his fare, 
And though he live unnoticed by the crowd; 
Still, spite of fashion's fools, the honest man 
Is yet the highest noble of the land ! 

Though you untie the winds, and let them fight 

Against the churches; though the yeasty wave? 

Confound and swallow navigation up ; 

Though bladed corn be lodged, and trees blown down ; 

Though castles topple on their warders' heads ; 

Though palaces and pyramids do slope 

Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure 

Of Nature's germens tumble all together 

Even till destruction sicken, answer me. 

Had it pleased heaven 
To try me with affliction ; had they rained 
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head, 
Steeped me in poverty to the very lips, 
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes, 
I should have found in some part of my soul 
A drop of patience. 

Concentration of Emphasis. 
Series, Emphasis Deferred. 

Property, character, reputation, everything was sacri- 
ficed. 

Toils, sufferings, wounds, and death, was the price 
of our liberty. 

His hopes, his happiness, his life, hung upon the 
words that fell from those lips. 

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, grati- 
fying prospects spread out before us. 

Their own cares, their own labors, their own counsels, 
their own blood, contrived all, achieved all, bore all, 
sealed all. 

Joy, grief, fear, anger, pity, scorn, hate, jealousy, and 
love, stamp assumed distinction upon the player. 



THE WA VE OF EMPHASIS. 87 

Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor 
domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor 
abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect, had power to dis- 
turb his sedate and majestic patience. 

The verdant lawn, the shady grove, the variegated 
landscape, the boundless ocean and the starry firma- 
ment, all tend to inspire us with the love of nature and 
of nature's God. 

I told him, I warned him, I advised him, I implored 
him to act with you, near you, through you, under you. 

Charity beareth all things, belie veth all things, hopeth 
all things, endureth all things. 

The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind. 

Then will I doom thee, when no man is to be found, 
so lost to reason, so depraved, so like thyself, that he 
will not admit the sentence was deserved. 

Proceed, plot, conspire, as thou wilt ; there is nothing 
thou canst contrive, propose, attempt, which I shall not 
promptly be made aware of. 

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present 
nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Days, months, years, and ages shall circle away, 
And still the vast waters above thee shall roll. 

Love, transport, madness, anger, scorn, despair, 
And all the passions, all the soul is there. 

The tear, 
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, 
And all we know, or dream, or fear 
Of agony, are thine. 

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand, 

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatched. 



88 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

Restrictive Expressions ; Adjuncts. 

The loss of reputation for good management, is, in 
this case, to be traced to a little circumstance. 

If he were learning to play on the flute for public ex- 
hibition, what hours and days would he spend in giving 
facility to his fingers, and attaining the power of the 
sweetest and most impressive execution. 

The evil that men do lives after them ; 
The good is oft interred with their bones. 

I've had wrongs 
To stir a fever in the blood of age. 

A violet by a mossy stone, 

Half hidden from the eye; 
Fair as a star, when only one 

Is shining in the sky. 

Then saw in death his eyelids close, 
Calmly as to a night's repose, 
Like flowers at set of sun. 

Restrictive Relative Clauses. 

The love that survives the tomb is one of the noblest 
attributes of the soul. 

Genius is not a faculty of the mind separate from all 
the rest. 

Every good man must love the country in which he 
was born. 

A government directing itself resolutely and steadily 
to the general good, becomes a minister of virtue. 

The day we celebrate is one of the proudest in our 
national history. 

The Lydians, the Persians, and the Arabians, that 
wished to leave the army, are at liberty to do so. 



THE WAVE OF EMPHASIS. 89 

We call thee Lord of Day, and thou dost give 

To earth the fire that animates her crust, 
And wakens all the forms that move and live. 

They also serve, who only stand and wait. 

The glorious angel who was keeping 
The gates of light beheld her weeping. 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 
That spread his lustrous coil. 

O blows that smite ! O hurts that pierce 

This shrinking heart of mine ! 
What are ye but the Master's tools, 

Forming a work divine ? 

O hope that crumbles at my feet ! 

O joy that mocks and flies ! 
What are ye but the clogs that bind 

My spirit from the skies? 

He woke to die midst flame and smoke, 
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, 
And death-shots falling thick and fast 
Like forest pines before the blast, 
Or lightnings from the mountain cloud. 

Extended Logical Subject. 

The success with which Rousseau passed, coarse and 
selfish as he was, for a man of deep and tender feeling, 
appears to have been a signal for a procession of writers* 
to withdraw the public attention from their own trans- 
gressions. 

That the memories of those most justly venerable and 
dear should throng round us with a new vitality, as life's 
evening draws on, is scarcely reconcilable with the sup- 



* As Rousseau was a famous writer, the emphasis falls on "procession, 
not on its adjunct, " of writers." 



90 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

position that the spirits of which such remembrances 
are the most precious possession is itself on the point 
of expiring forever. 

The miracles that Moses performed may have con- 
vinced Pharaoh, but, at first, they humbled not his 
pride. 

He who stands on etiquette, merely shows his own 
littleness. 

To become conversant with a single department of 
literature only, has a tendency to make our views narrow, 
and our impressions incorrect. 

Thy ambition, 
Thou scarlet sin, robbed this bewailing land 
Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law ; 
The heads of all thy brother cardinals, 
With thee and all thy best parts bound together, 
Weighed not a hair of his. 

Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live, 
Is worth the best joys that life elsewhere can give. 

Complicated Antithesis. 

The wise shall inherit glory ; but shame shall be the 
portion of fools. 

When reason is against man, he will be against 
reason. 

Words are the counters of wise men, and the money 
of fools. 

I do not live that I may eat ; I eat that I may live. 

Business sweetens pleasure, as labor sweetens rest. 

On the one side, all was alacrity and courage ; on the 
other, all was timidity and indecision. 

The wise man is happy when he gains his own ap- 
probation ; the fool, when he gains the applause of 
others. 



GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. 91 

I that denied thee gold, will give my heart. 
A good man loves himself too well to lose an estate 
by gaming ; and his neighbor too well to win one. 

Cass. I may do that I shall be sorry for. 

Brut. You have done that you should be sorry for. 

Oh, it is excellent 
To have a giant's strength ; but it is tyrannous 
To use it like a giant. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. 

Hitherto we have been treating of inflections; that is 
to say, such variations of the voice upon the scale as 
consist of concrete slides, and bends which mark 
pauses, and begin and end upon a single word. But 
the subject of melody in speech cannot be completely 
presented without referring to another class of varia- 
tions in pitch according to which the voice ascends or 
descends by grades, consisting of clauses, sometimes 
words and sometimes entire sentences; and that with- 
out reference to the inflections which may more inti- 
mately belong to them. 

Such variations occur in the following instances : — 

1. The voice rises by grades : — 

a. When the succession of clauses or sentences im- 
plies an increasing interest of any sort; as, "All that I 
have, all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am 
now ready here to stake upon it." 



92 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

" Awake, Sir King, the gates unspar ! 
Rise up, and ride both fast and far ! 
The sea flows over bolt and bar!" 

Observation. — If the emotion gains in excitement, the voice rises, 
if in force, it descends, in pitch. Change of pitch from medium to 
higher and higher, or to lower and lower, always shows a change in 
the feeling of the speaker, either greater intensity or greater force. 

b. In passages of solemnity and sublimity, apostro- 
phes to the Deity (as in the opening sentences of 
prayers), to mountains and other grand objects, earnest 
oratorical appeals, etc.; as, "Lord, thou hast been our 
dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains 
were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth 
and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou 
art God." 

" O thou Eternal One ! whose presence bright 
All space doth occupy, all motion guide, 
Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight, 
Thou only God ! There is no God beside." 

Note. — In the above quatrain, and in passages of similar type, 
the clauses rise successively in pitch about half a semitone* (the 
ascent being on the last word in each clause, which gives the pitch 
for the one succeeding), until a natural climax is reached, when the 
descent begins, and continues to the close. Following is an imper- 
fect representation of the process by typographical arrangement: — 

* Gardiner, in his " Music of Nature," gives us a vivid description of the 
opening sentence of a prayer by the Rev. Edward Irving, the celebrated 
Scotch divine: " His voice is that of a sonorous basso ; in manner he is slow 
and reverential. His prayer, commencing with the words,— 



Almighty and most merciful Father; in whom we live.move, and have our being, 

reminded me of that slow and solemn strain of deep holding notes, 
gradually ascending, which describes the rising of the moon in Haydn's 
'Creation.' " 



GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. 93 

bright 
O thou Eternal One ! whose presence 

guide; 
All space doth occupy, all motion 

flight; 
Unchanged through time's all-devastating 
only 
Thou 

God .' no God 

There is 

beside. 

2. The voice descends by grades : — 
a. After such a climax of an ascending series as is 
described in the foregoing rule ; as, 

*'The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And like this unsubstantial pageant, faded, — 
Leave not a rack behind." 

Note. — The first part of the passage rises, the second part (begin- 
ning with "shall dissolve") descends in pitch. 

6. When climax is to be made by lowering the tone; 
as, " What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and 
Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife ! — 
to the cannibal, torturing, murdering, devouring, drink- 
ing the blood of his mangled victims ! " 

c. When anything in the sentiment expressed requires 
a descending tone ; as, 

"And didst thou visit him no more? 

Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter dear ; 
The waters laid thee at his door 

Ere yet the early dawn was clear. 
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, 
The lifted sun shone on thy face, 
Down drifted to thy dwelling-place." 



94 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

d. In parentheses, to indicate that the parenthetic 
clause is not a necessary part of the sentence; as, 

" If there's a power above us 
(And that there is all Nature cries aloud 
Through all her works), he must delight in virtue." 

Note. — That part of the sentence which precedes the parenthesis, 
should be a little stronger in tone to suggest the difference between 
it and the parenthesis. 

To this rule there is one exception. Thus : — 
Sometimes, under the influence of emotion, the pa- 
renthesis is given on a higher level ; as, 

" And more I tell thee, haughty peer, 
Ev'n in thy pitch of pride : 
Here in thy hold, thy vassals near — 
(Nay, never look upon your lord, 
And lay your hand upon your sword !) 
I tell thee, thou'rt defied." 

Observation. — This depression of the pitch, in a degree some- 
what less decided, is used also in subordinate clauses, and phrases of 
circumstance or description, thrown in between the parts of the lead- 
ing clauses to qualify the assertion. These, though set off by commas 
only, are really parenthetic in their character, and should be distin- 
guished from the leading member more or less according to the degree 
of interruption they occasion to the construction and flow of the sen- 
tence; as, "I have known few authors, and many instances have 
fallen in my way, who did not read their own compositions exactly as 
they would those of another." Here the clause "and many in- 
stances have fallen in my way," is connected with what precedes, not 
in construction, but by a shade of thought— out of the many I have 
known, there were but few, etc. 

Examples for Practice in the Use of Pitch. 
Graded Bise, Increasing Interest. 
Here I stand for impeachment or trial ! I dare accu- 
sation ! I defy the honorable gentleman ! I defy the 



GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. 95 

government ! I defy their whole phalanx ! Let them 
come forth ! I tell the ministers I will neither give them 
quarter, nor take it ! 

We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the 
fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and 
the verdant fields of New England. We greet your 
accession to the great inheritance which we have en- 
joyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good gov- 
ernment and religious liberty. 

I would invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and 
all who minister at her altar, that they execute the 
wholesome and necessary severity of the law. I invoke 
the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its de- 
nunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanc- 
tions to the authority of human laws. If the pulpit be 
silent, whenever or wherever there may be a sinner, 
bloody with this guilt, within the hearing of its voice, 
the pulpit is false to its trust. 

I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and 
fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the vis- 
ages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in 
this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the 
artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. 

Are they Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? 
So am I. Are they of the seed of Abraham ? So am 
I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one 
beside himself) I more. 

Up drawbridge, grooms ! What warder, ho ! 
Let the portcullis fall ! 

Call the watch ! call the watch ! 
" Ho ! the starboard watch ahoy 1 " 

Forward, the light brigade! 
Charge for the guns ! 



96 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung. 

Eoll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. 

But here I stand and scoff you ! here I fling 
Hatred and full defiance in your face ! 

If it be Arthur — Ho ! what, ho ! 
Up spear ! out arrow ! Bend the bow ! 
Forth after Arthur, on the foe ! 

Now fall on the foe like a tempest of flame! 

Strike down the false banner whose triumph were shame! 

Strike, strike for the true flag, for freedom and fame! 

" To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! " they cry ; 

"Grasp the shield and draw the sword ; 

Lead us to Philippi's lord ; 
Let us conquer him or die !" 

" The olde sea-wall (he cried) is downe; 

The rising tide comes on apace, 
And boats adrift in yonder towne 

Go sailing uppe the market-place." 

The wind, one morning, sprang up from sleep, 
Saying, " Now for a frolic ! now for a leap ! 
Now for a madcap, galloping chase ! 
I'll make a commotion in every place !" 

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot ; 
Follow your spirits, and upon this charge, 
Cry, — Heaven for Harry ! England ! and St. George ! 

Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed, 
And speed, if ever for life you would speed ; 
And ride for your lives, for your lives yon must ride, 
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire. 

And there was mounting in hot haste ; the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed. 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war. 



GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. 97 

O ye loud waves ! and O ye forests high ! 

And O ye clouds that far above me soared ! 
Thou rising sun ! thou blue rejoicing sky ! 

Yea, every thing that is, and will be free ! 
Bear witness for me, whereso'er ye be, 

With what deep worship I have still adored 
The spirit of divinest liberty ! 

la, they come, they come, 

Garlands for every shrine, 
Strike lyres to greet them home, 

Bring roses, pour ye wine ! 

Swell, swell the Dorian flute 
Through the blue triumphal sky, 

Let the cithern's tone salute 
The sons of victory ! 

She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel 

The thrill of life along her keel, 

And spurning with her foot the ground, 

With one exulting, joyous bound, 

She leaps into the Ocean's arms. 

Graded Rise, Solemnity and Sublimity. 

There was silence, and I heard a voice saying, Shall 
mortal man be more just than God ? Shall a man be 
more pure than his Maker? 

And thou, sole Ruler among the children of men, to 
whom the shields of the earth belong, "gird on thy 
sword, thou most Mighty : " go forth with our hosts in 
the day of battle ! Impart, in addition to their heredi- 
tary valor, that confidence of success which springs 
from thy presence ! Pour into their hearts the spirit of 
departed heroes! Inspire them with thine own; and, 
while led by thine hand and righting under thy ban- 
ners, open thou their eyes to behold in every valley and 
in every plain what the prophet beheld by the same 

7 



98 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

illumination, — chariots of fire and horses of fire! 
" Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker 
of it as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and 
none shall quench them." 

When all thy mercies, O my God, 

My rising sonl surveys, 
Transported with the view, I'm lost 

In wonder, love and praise. 

Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth ! 
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills, 
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, 
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, 
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. 

O sacred forms, how proud you look ! 
How high you lift your heads into the sky ! 
How huge you are, how mighty, and how free ! 
Ye are the things that tower, that shine ; whose smile 
Makes glad — whose frown is terrible ; whose forms, 
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear 
Of awe divine. 

Father of earth and heaven ! I call thy name ! 

Round me the smoke and shout of battle roll ! 
My eyes are dazzled with the rustling flame ; 

Father, sustain an untried soldier's soul. 

Or life, or death, whatever be the goal 
That crowns or closes round this struggling hour, 

Thou knowest, if ever from my spirit stole 
One deeper prayer, t'was that no cloud might lower 
On my young fame ! — O hear ! God of eternal power. 

Now for the fight — now for the cannon peal ! — 

Forward ! through blood and toil and cloud and fire ! 

Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel, 
The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire; 
They shake — like broken waves their squares retire, — 



GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. 99 

On them huzzars! — Now give them rein and heel ; 

Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire: — 
Earth cries for blood, — in thunder on them wheel ! 
This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph seal ! 

Graded Fall, Climax. 

It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in bonds ; it is 
the height of guilt to scourge him ; little less than par- 
ricide to put him to death : what name, then, shall I 
give to the act of crucifying him ? 

What a piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ! 
how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how ex- 
press and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in 
apprehension how like a God ! 

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into 
heaven ; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ; 
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in 
the sides of the north ; I will ascend above the heights 
of the clouds; I will be like the Most High !* 

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while 
a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would 
lay down my arms, never, never, never ! 

Graded Fall, Sentiment Expressed. 

The day is done, and the darkness 

Falls from the wings of Night, 
As a feather is wafted downward 

From an eagle in his flight. 

Ah, few shall part where many meet! 

The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 
And every turf beneath their feet 

Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 

* In the three foregoing examples the pitch rises through successive 
clauses until the last, when the voice suddenly sinks, to express the 
climax. 



100 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

With many a weary step and many a groan 
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone : 
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound, 
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground. 

No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast 
Was heard in his wildly breathed numbers ; 

The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest, 
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers. 

Into the jaws of death, 
Into the mouth of Hell, 
Rode the six hundred. 

, Parenthesis. 

Natural historians observe (for while I am in the 
country I must fetch my allusions from thence) that 
only the male birds have voices. 

I mention these instances, not to undervalue science 
(it would be folly to attempt that; for science, when true 
to its name, is true knowledge), but to show that its 
name is sometimes wrongfully assumed. 

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest 
(For Brutus is an honorable man ; 
So are they all — all honorable men), 
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

Parenthetical Expressions. 

If I have any genius, which I am sensible can be but 
very small; or any readiness in speaking, in which I do 
not deny that I have been much conversant; or any skill 
in oratory, from an acquaintance with the best arts, to 
which I confess I have been always inclined ; no one has 
a better right to demand of me the fruit of all these 
things than this Aulus Licinius. 

The fundamental principles of science, at least those 



GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. 101 

that were abstract rather than practical, were deposited, 
during the Middle Ages, in the dead languages. 

Whether the prime orb, 
Incredible how swift, had thither rolled 
Diurnal, or this less voluble earth, 
By shorter flight to th' East, had left him there. 

She had a song of willow, 
An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune, 
And she died singing it. 

At midnight, in his guarded tent, 
The Turk was dreaming of the hour 

When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, 
Should "tremble at his power. 

How glorious once above thy height, 
Till pride, and, worse, ambition threw me down, 
Warring in heaven. 



102 MELODY IN SPEECH. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES 

FOR RHETORICAL AND ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing: 
Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do 
evil ? to save life^ or to destroy it ? 

Has God forsaken the works of his own hands ? or 
does he always graciously preserve, and keep, and guide 
them? 

What, then, what was Caesar's object ? Do we select 
extortioners to enforce the laws. of equity ? Do we make 
choice of profligates to guard the morals of society ? 
Do we depute atheists to preside over the rites of reli- 
gion ? I will not press the answer ? 

Because eloquence has been abused, because it has 
served Antichrist, or rendered sin specious, is it there- 
fore, less excellent in itself? Or is it for that reason, to 
be rejected from the service of holiness ? No ; let it be 
employed in the service of God, and it is directed to its 
noblest ends ; it answers the best of purposes ! 

And, indeed, not to quit our own age, or our own 
land, do we not see all around us the attractions of the 
cross ? What is it that guides and governs the tide of 
religious popularity, whether it rolls in the channels of 
the Establishment, or those of Dissent? Is it not this 
which causes the mighty influx of the spring-tide in one 
place ; and is it not the absence of it, which occasions 
the dull retiring ebb in another ? 

You, T. Attius, I know, had everywhere given it out, 
that I was to defend my client, not from facts, not upon 



MISCELLANEO US EXAMPLES. 103 

the footing of innocence, but by taking advantage merely 
of the law in his behalf. Have I done so ? I appeal to 
yourself. Have I sought to cover him behind legal de- 
fence only ? On the contrary, have I not pleaded his 
cause as if he had been a senator, liable by the Corne- 
lian law to be capitally convicted ; and shown that 
neither proof nor probable presumption lies against his 
innocence ? 

It may, in the next place, be asked, perhaps, suppos- 
ing all this to be true, what can we do ? Are we to go 
to war ? Are we to interfere in the Greek cause, or any 
other European cause ? Are we to endanger our pacific 
relations? — No, certainly not. What, then, the ques- 
tion recurs, remains for us ? If we will not endanger 
our own peace, if we will neither furnish armies, nor 
navies, to the cause which we think the just one, what 
is there within our power? 

What ! does the word come more powerfully from the 
dignitary in purple and fine linen than it came from the 
poor apostle with nothing but the spirit of the Lord on 
his lips, and the glory of God standing on his right 
hand? What! my lords, not cultivate barren land; 
not encourage the manufactures of your country ; not 
relieve the poor of your flock, if the church is to be at 
the expense thereby ? — Where shall we find this prin- 
ciple? not in the Bible. 

Who are the persons that are most apt to fall into 
peevishness and dejection — that are continually com- 
plaining of the world, and see nothing but wretched- 
ness around them ? Are they those whom want com- 
pels to toil for their daily bread ? — who have no treasure 
but the labor of their hands — who rise with the rising 
sun, to expose themselves to all the rigors of the seasons, 
unsheltered from the winter's cold, and unshaded from 



104 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

the summer's heat? No. The labors of such are the 
very blessings of their condition. 

Where were these guardians of the Constitution, these 
vigilant sentinels of our rights and liberties, when this 
law was passed? Were they asleep upon their post? 
Where was the gentleman from New York, who has on 
this debate, made such a noble stand in favor of the 
Constitution : where was the Ajax Telamon of his 
party- —or, to use his own more correct expression, the 
faction to which he belongs : where was the hero with 
his sevenfold shield, not- of bull's hide, but of brass, 
prepared to prevent or to punish this Trojan rape, which 
he now sees meditated upon the Constitution of his 
country by a wicked faction : where was Hercules, that 
he did not crush this den of robbers that broke into 
the sanctuary of the Constitution? Was he forgetful of 
his duty ; w r ere his nerves unstrung ; or was he the very 
leader of the band that broke down these constitutional 
ramparts ? 

By what title do you, Q. Naso, sit in that chair and 
preside in this judgment? By what right, T. Attius, do 
you accuse, or do I defend ? Whence all the solemnity 
and pomp of judges, and clerks, and officers, of which 
this house is full? Does not all proceed from the law, 
which regulates the whole department of the State; 
which, as a common bond, holds its members together; 
and, like the soul within the body, actuates and directs 
all the public functions ? On what ground, then, dare 
you speak lightly of the law, or move that, in a crimi- 
nal trial, judges should advance one step beyond what 
it permits them to go? 

Whither shall he go? Shall he dedicate himself to 
the service of his country? But will his country re- 
ceive him ? Will she employ in her councils, or in her 



MISCELLANEO US EX A MPLES. 105 

armies, the man at whom the " slow unmoving finger 
of scorn " is pointed? Shall he betake himself to the 
fireside? The story of his disgrace will enter his own 
doors before him. And can he bear, think you, can he 
bear the sympathizing agonies of a distressed wife? 
Can he endure the formidable presence of scrutinizing, 
sneering domestics ? Will his children receive instruc- 
tion from the lips of a disgraced father? Gentlemen, 
I am not ranging on fairy ground, I am telling the 
plain story of my client's wrongs. By the ruthless 
hand of malice his character has been wantonly massa- 
cred ; and he now appears before a jury of his country 
for redress. 

Will any man tell me that he has now confident 
hopes of the Catholic question ? We are told that we 
are not to try the question of the four hundred free- 
holders on its own merits, but that the measure is ex- 
pedient, because it will insure the passing of the Catho- 
lic Bill. This argument might have been used twenty- 
four hours ago, but does any man believe after what 
has passed, that the enactment of this measure will be 
sure to carry the Catholic Bill ? What earthly security 
have I, that if I abandon my privileges and my duty 
as a legislator, by voting for this measure in the dark, I 
shall even have the supposed compensation for this 
abandonment and betrayal of my duty, the passing of 
the Catholic Bill ? I repeat, that this might have been 
urged as an argument two or three days ago, but does 
any man really believe now that the Catholic Bill will 
pass ? Does any man believe that the ominous news 
of this day, which has gone forth to England and Ire- 
land, will not ring the knell of despair in the ears of the 
Catholics ? 

Yes, Athenians, I repeat it, you yourselves are the 



106 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

contrivers of your own ruin. Lives there a man who 
has confidence enough to deny it? Let him arise, and 
assign, if he can, any other cause of the success and 
prosperity of Philip — " But," you reply, " what Athens 
may have lost in reputation abroad, she has gained in 
splendor at home. Was there ever a greater appearance 
of prosperity ; a greater face of plenty ? Is not the 
city enlarged ? Are not the streets better paved, houses 
repaired and beautified?" Away with such trifles! 
Shall I be paid with counters ? An old square new 
vamped up ! a fountain! an aqueduct! are these acqui- 
sitions to brag of? Cast your eye upon the magistrate 
under whose ministry you boast these precious im- 
provements. Behold the despicable creature, raised, all 
at once, from dirt to opulence ; from the lowest obscu- 
rity to the highest honors. Have not some of those 
upstarts built private houses and seats, vying with 
the most sumptuous of our public places? And how 
have their fortunes and their power increased, but 
as the Commonwealth has been ruined and impover- 
ished ? 

Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any 
principle of human probability, what shall be the fate 
of this handful of adventurers. — Tell me, man of mili- 
tary science, in how many months were they all swept 
off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the 
early limits of New England ? Tell me, politician, how 
long did the shadow of a colony, on which your con- 
ventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the 
distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the 
baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned 
adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this. 
Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless 
heads of women and children ; was it hard labor and 



MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES. 107 

spare meals ; — was it disease, — was it the tomahawk, — 
was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined 
enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last mo- 
ments at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond 
the sea ; was it some, or all of these united, that hurried 
this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? — And 
is it possible, that neither of these causes, that not all 
combined, were able to blast this bud of hope ? — Is it 
possible, that, from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so 
worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there has 
gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, 
an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a pro- 
mise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious? 

Thou smilest ? Smile : 'tis better than to sigh. 

You come to take your stand here, and behold 
The Lady Anne pass from her coronation ? 

But wherefore thou alone? wherefore with thee 
Came not all hell broke loose? is pain to them 
Less pain, less to be fled? or thou than they 
Less hardy to endure? 

Macd. How does my wife ? 

Eosse. Why, well. 

Macd. And all my children? 

Rosse. Well, too. 

Macd. The tyrant has not battered at their peace? 

Eos^e. No ; they were well at peace when I did leave them. 

Child. Father! father! 
W T hy do you look so terribly upon me? 
You will not hurt me ? 

Father. Hurt thee, darling ? no ! 
Has sorrow's violence so much of anger, 
That it should fright my boy ? Come, dearest, come. 

C You are not angry then. 

F. Too well I love you. 



108 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

Did not great Julius bleed for justice's sake? 
What villain touched his body, that did stab, 
And not for justice? What, shall one of us, 
That struck the foremost man of all this world, 
But for supporting robbers — shall we now 
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, 
And sell the mighty space of our large honors 
For so much trash as may be grasped thus? 

In vain they pushed inquiry to the birth 

And spring-time of the world ; asked, Whence is man ? 

Why formed at all? and wherefore as he is? 

Where must he find his Maker? with what rites 

Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless? 

Or does he sit regardless of his works? 

Has man within him an immortal seed? 

Or does the tomb take all? If he survive 

His ashes, where ? and in what weal or woe ? 

Knots worthy of solution which alone 

A Deity could solve. 

And could'st thou faithful add? O name, 
O sacred name of faithfulness profaned ! 
Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew? 
Army of Fiends ! — fit body to fit head ! 
Was this your discipline and faith engaged, 
Your military obedience, to dissolve 
Allegiance to the acknowledged Power supreme? 
And thou, sly hypocrite, who now would'st seem 
Patron of liberty, who more titan thou 
Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored 
Heaven's awful Monarch ? 

What if this cursed hand 
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood ; 
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens 
To wash it white as snow ? Whereto serves mercy, 
But to confront the visage of offence? 
And what's in prayer, but this twofold force, 
To be forestalled, ere we come to fall, 
Or pardoned being down? — Then I'll look up; 



MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES. 109 

My fault is past.— Bat oh, what form of prayer 

Can serve my turn ? " Forgive me my foul murder ? " 

That cannot be ; since I am still possessed 

Of those effects for which I did the murder, 

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 

May one be pardoned, and retain the offence ? 

O unexpected stroke, worse than of death I 
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave 
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, 
Fit haunt of gods? where I had hoped to spend, 
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day 
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers, 
That never will in other climate grow, 
My early visitation, and my last 
At even, which I bred up with tender hand 
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names, 
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank 
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount ? 
Thee lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorned 
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee 
How shall I part, and whither wander down 
Into a lower world, to this obscure 
And wild ? how shall we breathe in other air 
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits? 

O sleep, O gentle sleep, 

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 

And steep my senses in forgetfulness? 

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 

Under the canopies of costly state, 

And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody ? 

O thou dull god, whyliest thou with the vile, 

In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch 

A watch-case, or a common Marurn bell ? 

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 



110 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

Seal np the ship boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude imperious surge 
And in the visitation of the winds, 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 
With deaf'ning clamors in the slippery clouds, 
That with the hurly death itself awakes? 
Canst thou, O partial sleep ! give thy repose 
To the wet sea boy, in an hour so rude, 
And in the calmest and most stillest night, 
With all appliances and means to boot, 
Deny it to a King? 

Ham. But where was this ? 

Hnr. My lord, upon the platform where we watched. 

Ham. Did you not speak to it ? 

Hor, My lord, I did ; 
But answer made it none. . . . 

Ham. 'Tis very strange ! 

Hor. As I do live, my honored lord, 'tis true ; 
And we did think it writ down in our duty, 
To let you know of it. 

Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. 
Hold you the watch to-night? 

Hor. We do, my lord. 

Ham. Armed, say you ? 

Hor. Armed, my lord. 

Ham. From top to toe? 

Hor. My lord, from head to foot. 

Ham. Then saw you not his face ? 

Hor. O yes, my lord ; he wore his beaver np. 

Ham. What, looked he frowningly? 

Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. 

Ham. Pale, or red ? 

Hor. Nay, very pale. 

Ham. And fixed his eyes upon you ? 

Hor. Most constantly. 

Ham. I would I had been there. 

Hor. It would have much amazed you. 

Ham. Very like, very like : staid it long? 



MiSCELLANEO US EXAMPLES. Ill 

Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. 
Ham. His beard was grizzled ? — no ? 
Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, 
A sable silvered. 

Ham. I'll watch to-night ; perchance 'twill walk again. 

Are these the pompons tidings ye proclaim, 
Lights of the world, and demigods of fame? 
Is this your triumph, this your proud applause, 
Children of Truth, and champions of her cause? 
For this hath Science searched, on weary wing, 
By shore and sea, each mute and living thing ? 
Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep, 
To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep? 
Or round the cope her living chariot driven, 
And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven? 
Ob, star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there 
To waft us home the message of despair? — 
Then bind the palm, thy sage's brow to suit, 
Of blasted leaf, and death-distilling fruit. 
Ah, me ! the laurelled wreath that murder rears, 
Blood-nursed, aud watered by the widow's tears, 
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread, 
As waves the nightshade round the sceptic head. 
What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain ? 
I smile on death, if heavenward hope remain. 
But if the warring winds of nature's strife 
Be all the faithless charter of my life, 
If chance awaked, inexorable power ! 
This pale and feverish being of an hour, 
Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep, 
Swift as the tempest travels o'er the deep, 
To know delight but by her parting smile, 
And toil, and wish, and weep a little while ; 
Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain 
This troubled pulse and visionary brain ! 
Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom ! 
And sink, ye stars that light me to the tomb ! 



APPENDIX I. 



APPENDIX I. 

BY BLANDINA CONANT. 



A few selections, in the reading of which the class at 
the Boston School of Oratory was carefully drilled, are 
given in this Appendix with the comments and words 
of instruction hy Professor Raymond, recorded in my 
note-book at the time they were spoken in the class- 
room. I reproduce them in the belief that they will 
be as valuable and interesting to others as they were 
to the members of the class. 

The examples for practice are preceded by a few sen- 
tences from Professor Raymond's familiar talk in the 
class-room, taken from my note-book, made when I was 
one of his pupils. Would it were possible to reproduce 
the varied expressions of his face, the musical beauty, 
the sympathetic quality, the exquisite intonations of 
his voice ! He was an ideal reader, and not less an ideal 
teacher. The pupils so fortunate as to have shared his 
instruction, will never cease to be grateful for the privi- 
lege. With the deepest gratitude we recall his constant 
kindness, and with delight we remember his quickness 
of illustration, his appreciation of our difficulties, his 
faithfulness, never overlooking a fault nor neglecting to 
praise the slightest improvement. If sometimes he could 
not repress irritation when a fine passage was hope- 
lessly mangled, he made up for the reproof by in- 
creased kindness and patience. 

(115) 



116 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

Class-Talk. 

The value of the mechanical part of elocution is 
merely to enable one to attain the highest end — the ex- 
pression of feeling. If this is not accomplished, the 
reader is like a man who fancies himself a violinist be- 
cause he possesses a Stradivarius. 



Mere stress of voice without shades of inflection, is 
like a duck's foot in the mud; right inflection is like a 
bird alighting on a branch, tetering and shaking the 
sprays. 

Colloquial inflections are to be given in poetry, but 
poetry is not to be read as prose. A slight pause at the 
end of each line should mark the rhyme. If it is 
blank verse, there should be a slight pause (or rather, 
'poke) of the voice at the end of each line. 



Tone-color is essential to the true expression of poetry. 
Without this, it speaks to the intellect only, not to the 
heart. If there is word-painting, express this by the 
tone, but do not exaggerate. Suggest rather than imi- 
tate. Where elevation of thought is required, let it be 
obtained by elevation of feeling, giving tone-color — not 
by loudness, swagger, or display of art. 



In oratory, naturalness and simplicity should be pre- 
served. Either through bad training or bad taste, few 
orators are really good speakers. They mouth, empha- 
size too much, swell and strut (with voice at least). An 
orator should be careful to keep his voice within a 
pleasant range. If it rises above or sinks below an 
agreeable pitch the effect is bad. 



APPENDIX. 117 

The law of contrast is of great importance in reading. 
If you want to be especially strong anywhere, be very 
quiet just before. In the opening of a speech, the audi- 
ence should be prepared for what is to follow. There 
is great power in reserved force. If you begin with great 
force where there is no particular emphasis, you can 
neither keep it up, nor give the just emphasis where 
you desire it. 



The power of silence is illustrated by the continual 
low ringing of the bell in a mine — ting-a-ling, ting-a- 
ling. Should the machinery be injured, a fire break 
out, or other danger be discovered, the bell stops at 
once, and every one seeks safety. Did the bell ring 
only when there is danger, the workmen, distracted by 
all the other noises of the mine, would not be likely to 
notice it? So, if a clergyman finds his congregation 
inattentive, a complete pause before some emphatic 
thought will wake them all up. 



Once while I was instructing a class of theological 
students in reading the Scriptures, I became so indig- 
nant at the slipshod, careless way in which they read, 
that at last I could contain myself no longer. " Your 
reading is perfectly disgraceful," I said. "You are all 
intending to be clergymen. You profess to consider 
this book as the inspired word of God, and yet you read 
as if it were a task to be got through with anyhow, as 
quickly as possible, so that you may come to the more 
important parts of the service. No part is so important. 
If the Bible were read as it should be — as if you be- 
lieved it — there would be no infidels. To say nothing 
of its being inspired, we have here a magnificent litera- 



118 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

ture, lyrics, drama, oratory, history, ethics, prophecy. 
Read as it ought to be, it would prove better instruc- 
tion for your congregations than any sermons you could 
give them." 

As an example of how the Bible should be read, take 
the passage from Isaiah xiv, 13, 14. There should be 
a little formality in the opening of this selection and 
in similar passages from the Bible, because they are 
lofty chanting poetry. The delivery should be orotund, 
removed in a measure from the conversational tone. 
The whole coloring, so to speak, should be musical. 
In the last clause the voice should be full of awe, ex- 
pressing in this the feeling, not of the supposed speaker, 
but of the prophet, who is horror-struck at the pre- 
sumption of the king of Babylon. In simple passages 
(as generally in the Gospels) the tone should be digni- 
fied but simple. 

To avoid artificial emphasis, it is well to practice a 
pathetic passage in a purely intellectual tone until it 
can be made perfectly natural. 

Vibration in heart and voice may be produced me- 
chanically by filling the chest full and letting the tone 
out with a tremble. This will react on the emotion. 

It is w T ell often to change a poetical dramatic passage 
into a purely prosaic one, and practice it thus till the 
right intonations are obtained. 



Many elocutionists have such a false standard of art 
that they do a great deal more harm than good, and 
prejudice sensible people against all training of the voice. 
The way in which I once fell into a trap innocently set 
for me illustrates the danger of this false standard. The 



APPENDIX. 119 

teacher of elocution in a girls' school invited me to 
adjudge the prize for which her pupils had competed 
during the year. One after another came forward and 
read her selection, twisting and torturing the unhappy 
author's meaning, each being more artificial, more con- 
ventional than her predecessor. What a relief when 
the last one called up, read hers in clear, sweet, simple 
and natural tones. All having finished, the teacher 
turned to me with a beaming face, " Well, Prof. Ray- 
mond, to whom do you adjudge the prize ?" she asked. 
" Oh," said I, " there can be no question as to that. Of 
course it is due to Miss Smith." The teacher's counte- 
nance fell; she faltered out, "Miss Smith has just 
entered the class. She is the only one not trained 
by me." " Miss Smith's reading is so natural," I vent- 
ured to say. " But art, you know, Prof. Raymond, art 
should be our aim." " Oh, yes, art," said I, in despair.* 
Then knowing that it would be unjust to exalt the un- 
trained pupil over those whose months of careful drill- 
ing had produced such deplorable results, I reversed 
the decision with as good a grace as possible. 



In all tricks of voice, like imitations of sounds, etc., 
we risk being caught at it. If in doing this, we suit the 
mood of the audience, which should, however, be affected 
without knowing why, it is all right. Otherwise, close 
imitation should be avoided. It is better, in any 
case, to suggest sounds — the sighing of the wind, the ring- 
ing of bells, etc., rather than to make the imitation too 
obvious. 



* It would give a false idea of Prof. Raymond's reading to suppose that 
it was not art in the highest sense. He studied nature faith iully, and his 
artistic feeling idealized the interpretation of her lessons. 



120 MELODY IN SPEECH, 

The definite article before a noun is a mark that the 
following clause is restrictive; as, "The man who 
laughs." The indefinite article shows, therefore, that 
such a clause is not restrictive ; as, " a voice whose 
burden was her name." 



An aside must often (as generally on the stage) be 
given aloud. A hypocritical son is represented as say- 
ing to deceive his father, " I wish to subscribe to the 
orphan asylum," then to himself, " I guess that '11 fetch 
the old man." This last sentence is, theoretically, 
spoken in a whisper ; in reality, so that all can hear ; but 
the right coloring of an aside should be preserved. 



In pathetic passages care must be taken not to get a 
whining tone ; firm hold must be kept of all inflections. 
Sadness cuts down the waves of emphasis, and a high 
wave, therefore, injures the pathetic effect. 



When there is a latent connection between what is 
said and what is understood, the latter should be sug- 
gested by the tone ; as, " it is hard to believe the world 
is wicked ; [because] everything seems good and gentle." 



A noun in apposition with another, generally takes 
its color from the latter, rising if it rises, falling if it 
falls, emphasized if that is emphatic, etc. ; as, " Where 
is his son, the nimble-footed madcap, Prince of Wales f n 



APPENDIX. 121 



EXAMPLES FOE PEACTICE. 

WITH NOTES AND COMMENTS GIVEN BY PROF. RAYMOND 
TO HIS PUPILS.* 



UNWRITTEN MUSIC. 

BY N. P. WILLIS. 

There is a melancholy music in aviumn. The leaves 
float sadly about with a look of peculiar desolation, 
waving capriciously in the wind, and falling with a just 
audible sound, that is a very sigh for its sadness. And 
then, when the breeze is fresher, though the earlv 
autumn months are mostly still, they are swept on 
with cheerful rustle over the naked harvest-fields, and 
about in the eddies of the blast; and though I have 
sometimes, in the glow of exercise, felt my life securer 
in the triumph of the brave contest, yet in the chill of 
the evening, or when any sickness of the mind or body 
was on me, the moaning of those withered leaves has 

* In the following pieces, Italics are used to indicate various degrees of 
emphasis, not as in every case calling for the full force of emphasis usually- 
indicated by such type. Where it is especially strong, attention is called to 
the fact in the notes. Except in special cases, it has not been deemed nec- 
essary to indicate the rising and falling inflections, or the different degrees 
of pitch, Professor Raymond having given ample rules for their use. 

As these selections are intended for class drill, it has been thought advis- 
able to subjoin to each paragraph or stanza the notes explanatory of its 
meaning, of the inflecti'ons, etc., instead of placing such notes at the bottom 
of the page. 



122 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

pressed down my heart like a sorrow, and the cheerful 
fire, and the voices of my many sisters, might scarce 
remove it. 

This sketch is an example of dainty poetical prose. It has no 
great range of thought or sentiment, and is, therefore, an excel- 
lent exercise for obtaining sweet and graceful effects by delicate 
-shades of expression — by slight varying of tone and pitch, by sug- 
gestion, not imitation, of musical sound. There are no strong em- 
phases. The voice should not bear down on any of the words, nor 
should it be elevated, but conversational in' tone. The first two sen- 
tences should express a pensive sentiment. In the third, the open- 
ing clauses should be given more briskly and cheerfully ; in the last 
two clauses, the pensive tone is resumed. Emphasis on the word 
following " like," and similar terms of comparison, is generally 
strong, as in "like a sorrow." 

Then for the music of winter. I love to listen to the 
falling of snow. It is an unobtrusive and sweet music. 
You may temper your heart to the serenest mood by its 
low murmur. It is that kind of music that only ob- 
trudes upon your ear when your thoughts come lan- 
guidly. You need not hear it, if your mind is not idle. 
It realizes my dream of another icorld, where music is 
intuitive, like a thought, and comes, only when it is 
remembered. 

The second sentence should be given in a delicate, graceful tone. 
Emphasis falls on "music" in the third sentence, because of an 
implied negative. Snow makes a very faint sound in falling. 
One might insist that it has no sound, and be answered. " Yes, it 
has a music ; you'll hear it if you'll listen to it." In the sixth sentence, 
the clause, ''you need not hear it," should be given a little faster 
than what precedes or follows. In the last sentence, a very short 
pause should follow "comes." 

And the frost, too, has a melodious " ministry. 7 ' You 
will hear its crystals shoot in the dead of a clear night, 
as if the moonbeams were splintering like arrows on the 



APPENDIX. 123 

ground ; and you would listen to it the more earnestly, 
that it is the going-on of one of the most cunning and 
beautiful of nature's deep mysteries. I know nothing 
so wonderful as the shooting of a crystal. God has hid- 
den its principle as yet from the inquisitive eye of the 
philosopher, and we must be content to gaze on its ex- 
quisite beauty, and listen in mute wonder to the noise 
of its invisible workmanship. It is too fine a knowledge 
for us. We shall comprehend it when we know how 
the morning stars sang together. 

In the second sentence " on the ground " is an adjunct of <l splint- 
ering," not of "arrows," and, therefore, the emphasis is not deferred 
from the latter. In the third sentence no emphasis falls on " crystal " 
because its shooting has been mentioned before. 

You would hardly look for music in the dreariness 
of early winter. But before the keener frosts set in, and 
while the warm winds are yet stealing back occasion- 
ally, like regrets of the departed summer, there will come 
a soft rain or a heavy mist, and, when the north 
wind returns, there will be drops suspended, like ear- 
ring jewels, between the filaments of the cedar-tassels, 
and in the feathery edges of the dark green hemlocks, 
and, if the clearing-up is not followed by the heavy 
wind, they will all be frozen in their places like well- 
set gems. The next morning the warm sun comes out, 
and by the middle of the warm, dazzling forenoon, 
they are all loosened from the close touch which sus- 
tained them, and they will drop at the lightest motion. 
If you go along upon the south side of the wood at 
that hour, you will hear music. The dry foliage of the 
summer's shedding is scattered over the ground, and 
the round, hard drops ring out clearly and distinctly, 
as they are shaken down with the stirring of the breeze. 
It is something like the running of deep and rapid 



124 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

water, only more fitful and merrier; but, to one who 
goes out in nature with his heart open, it is a pleasant 
music, and, in contrast with the stern character of the 
season, delightful. 

In the second sentence " cedar-tassels " is followed by the bend, 

the partial close comes on " hemlocks." A very short pause fol- 

J0ws " places." In the fourth sentence, and in similar passages, 

related words and phrases like "If you go along upon the south side 

of the wood" are grouped together; so with "at that hour." 

Winter has many other sounds that give pleasure to 
the seeker for hidden sweetness ; but they are too rare 
and accidental to be described distinctly. The brooks 
have a sullen and muffled murmur under their frozen 
surface ; the ice in the distant river heaves up with the 
swell of the current, and falls again to the bank with a 
prolonged echo; and the woodsman's axe rings cheer- 
fully out from the bosom of the unrobed forest. These 
are, at best, however, but melancholy sounds, and, like 
all that meets the eye in that cheerless season, they but 
drive in the heart upon itself. I believe it is ordered in 
God's wisdom. We forget ourselves in the enticement 
of the sweet summer. Its music and its loveliness win 
away the senses that link up the affections, and we need 
a hand to turn us back tenderly, and hide from us the 
outward idols, in whose worship we are forgetting the 
high and more spiritual altars. 

In the second sentence, the short pause which should follow 
"brooks" gives more force to what comes after. With "heaves 
up" and "swell" the reader should drag the voice and seem to 
listen. In order to get the right inflections in this sentence, put it 
into simple talk and practice it first as such; as: The murmur of 
the brooks, the crashing of the ice in the river, even the ringing of 
the woodsman's axe, are melancholy sounds; all that meets the ear 
is like all that meets the eye. 

Let the fall of the voice on "eye" be as complete as if a period 
followed. 



APPENDIX. 125 



THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. 

BY ROBERT SOTTTHEY. 

It was a summer evening, 

Old Kaspar's work was done, 
And he before his cottage-door, 

Was sitting in the sun, 
And by him sported on the green 
His little grandchild, Wilhelmine. 

The poem begins with a simple statement, and the voice therefore 
falls at the end of the first two lines. 

"Evening" is emphasized because in telling a story, the first thing 
is to place the scene or set the time. 

A slight emphasis may come on "by" in the fifth line. In the 
last line, emphasis maybe deferred from "grandchild" to "Wil- 
helmine." 

She saw her brother Peierkin 

Boll something large and round, 
Which he beside the rivulet, 

In playing there, had found ; 
He came to ask what he had found, 
That was so large and smooth and round. 

"In playing there" is parenthetical, and is given with the bend. 

Old Kaspar took it from the boy, 

Who stood expectant by ; 
And then the old man shook his head, 
And with a natural sigh, 
" 'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, 
"Who fell in the great victory" 

Everything in the tone and replies of the old man should show 
his stupidity. In the third line the emphasis may be omitted on 
"head." The fifth line may be given either with the falling or the 
waving slide. Emphasis may be deferred from " skull " to i: vic- 
tory," but the effect would not be as good. 



126 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

" I find them in the garden, 

For there 's many here about ; 
And often when I go to plough, 

The ploughshare turns them out; 
For many thousand men," said he, 
" Were slain in that great victory." 

he partial close should fall on "garden" in the first line, be- 
cause of the strong inversion. The direct form would be as follows : 
There 's many here about, and I find them in the garden. " Gar- 
den" is emphasized because it is a statement telling exactly where. 
The second line is given with the rising slide (or bend), because 
what would naturally be the sequel is inverted. "Ploughshare," 
in the fourth line, may be emphasized instead of " plough." " Thou- 
sand," in the fifth line, is equivalent to many, and need not be 
emphasized, as Kaspar did not probably intend to count the num- 
bers. It is not necessary to emphasize "slain " in the last line (for 
of course they were killed), but emphasis may be deferred to it from 
"men." 

" Now tell us what 'twas all about," 
Young Peterkin, he cries; 
While little Wilhelminc looks up 
With wonder- waiting eyes; 
" Now tell us all about the war, 
And what they killed each other for." 

Strong emphasis falls on "about" in the first line. Emphasize 
"Peterkin" and "Wilhelmine" in the second and third lines, because 
they have not been mentioned for some time. In the fifth line it would 
be proper to emphasize "about" instead of "all," as a child would 
be very likely to repeat her brother's inflection, but the effect is 
better to put the emphasis on "all" rather than on "about" or 
" war," unless strong personation is desired. Wherever it is possi- 
ble, put the emphasis, for variety, in different parts of the sentence. 

" It was the English" Kaspar cried, 

" Who put the French to rout ; 

But what they killed each other for, 
I could not well make out. 

But everybody said," quoth he, 
"That 'twas a famous victory." 



APPENDIX. 127 

" Cried " in the first line is given with the bend, making a wave of 
the sentence, with emphasis slight on " English" and in the second 
line on "French" (in antithesis with "English"). The second line 
ends with the partial close. If preferred, the emphasis may be strong 
on " English " and " French," and the first line given with the falling 
inflection. The emphasis is repeated on " for" in the third line, be- 
cause Kaspar is replying to their question. The four last lines are 
transposed. The related sequel is expressed in the third line. The 
natural order wculd be as follows: Everybody said that 'twas a 
famous victory, but I could not well make out what they killed each 
other for. 

" My father lived at Blenheim then, 
Yon little stream hard by ; 
They burnt his dwelling to the ground, 

And he was forced to fly ; 
So, with his wife and child, he fled, 
Nor had he where to rest his head." 

The first line ends with the bend. There is slight emphasis on 
"father." Emphasize strongly either " fly" in the fourth, or " fled " 
in the fifth line, but not both. It would be correct to give the third 
line with the falling instead of the rising inflection, but the effect of 
so many falls in succession would be monotonous, so the statement 
may be made less vigorous and be more closely connected with what 
follows. The fifth line also may be given either with the rising or the 
falling inflection. If the latter is preferred, omit the emphasis on 
"fly" and "child" and emphasize "fled." 

"With fire and sword the country round 

Was wasted, far and wide ; 
And many a nursing mother then, 

And new-born baby, died : 
But things like that, you know, must be 
At every famous victory." 

" Be," in the fifth line, is very strongly emphasized ; it therefore 
falls. The sixth line is given with the bend, the related sequel 
"you know" being given in the fifth. 

"They say it was a shocking sight 
After the field was won ; 



128 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

For many thousand bodies here 

Lay rotting in the sun : 
But things like that, you know, must be 
After a famous victory" 

The first line should be given with the wave or the fall. The second 
line is given with the bend, the related sequel being expressed in 
the^tEIrd and fourth lines. The partial close is on "sun" in the 
fourth line. The sixth line is given with the waving slide, the 
related sequel "you know," which would naturally close the sen- 
tence, being expressed in the fifth line. 

" Great praise the Duke of Marlbrtf won, 

And our good prince, Eugene" 
" Why, 'twas a very wicked thing ! " 

Said little Wilhelmine. 
" Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he, 
" It was a famous victory." 

The partial close comes on " thing " in the third line, " wicked " 
being strongly emphasized. 

" And everybody praised the Duke 

Who this great fight did win." 
"And what good came of it at last?" 

Quoth little Peterkin. 
" Why, that I cannot tell," said he, 
" But 'twas a famous victory." 



EACH AND ALL. 

BY K. W. EMERSON. 

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, 

Of thee from the hill-top looking down ; 

The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 

.Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; 

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 

Deems not that great Napoleon 

Stops his horse and lists with delight, 

Whilst his files sweep round you Alpine height; 



APPENDIX. 129 

Nor knowest thou what argument 
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 
All are needed by each one ; 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 

If the meaning of the poet is not clear to the pupil, put it into 
the following form : How very dependent we are on each other. No 
man stands alone. Every one exerts, unconsciously, an influence on 
his neighbor. For instance, that fellow in the turnip-field does not 
suspect me of watching him ; that heifer does not low to please me, 
etc. nor do you know when you are doing a thing whether you are 
helping or hindering some one else. 

The first sentence is a masked compact one, neither does the 
clown, neither does the heifer, etc. The bend, therefore, comes at 
the end of the second, fourth, and eighth lines. . It would be proper 
to put it after the fifth line also, but the partial close is better here, 
because a number of upward inflections follow each other. The par- 
tial close comes on " each one," in the eleventh line. " Alone," in 
the twelfth line, means taken by itself. 

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; 
I brought him home, in his nest at even ; 
He sings the song, but it pleases not now, 
For I did not bring home the river and shy; — 
He sang to my ear— they sang to my eye. 

Separated from their natural surroundings, things lose their effect. 
Emphasis is strong on "sparrow," in the first line, because it is a 
new illustration. In the fourth line, ''now " is given with the bend 
because of the related sequel in the fifth line — " now," that is, with- 
out proper surroundings, the song seems very ordinary. In the sixth 
line, emphasis cannot be deferred from "He" to "they," because 
the antithesis is so strong. 

The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 
The bubbles of the latest wave 
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave ; 
And the bellowing of the savage sea 
Greeted their safe escape to me. 
9 



130 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

I wiped away the weeds and foam, 

I fetched my sea-born treasures home; 

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 

Had left their beauty on the shore, 

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar. 

Therje. is strong emphasis on "beauty" in the ninth line, very 
slight on " shore." Defer emphasis in the last line from •' sun " and 
"sand" to "uproar." These words form a series, that is, the scene 
with all its surroundings. 

The lover watched his graceful maid, 

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, 

Nor knew her beauty's best attire 

Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 

At last she came to his hermitage, 

Like the bird from the uvodlands to the cage ; — 

The gay enchantment was undone, 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 

The partial close comes at the end of the second, fourth, fifth, and 
sixth lines. If " hermitage," in the fifth line, were given with the 
bend, the effect would be too trivial. The thought conveyed by the 
third and fourth lines is, that all together was needed to make up 
the pretty picture. 

Then I said, " I covet truth ; 

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; 

I leave it behind with the games of youth." — 

As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, 

Running over the club-moss burrs ; 

I inhaled the violet's breath ; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs ; 

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; 

Over me soared the eternal sky ; 

Full of light and of deity ; 

Again I saw, again I heard, 

The rolling river, the morning bird ; — 

Beauty through my senses stole; 

I yielded myself to the perfect ichole. 



APPENDIX. 131 

The last twelve lines express the thought : I found that truth and 
beauty are parts of one great, perfect whole. I breathed it, I felt it 
through every pore. 

The eleventh line is not restrictive, for the poet is not comparing 
the bright sky with a dark and gloomy one. Give this line with a 
full tone. The partial close may come at the end of the first, second, 
sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, thirteenth and fourteenth lines, 
and the bend after "spoke" in the fourth, after "wreath" in the 
fifth, and after "saw" in the twelfth line. But to avoid so many 
falls at the end of the lines, the bend may come after "sky" in the 
tenth line. Defer emphasis from "pine-cones" to "acorns" in the 
ninth line. In the twelfth line, emphasis falls theoretically on 
"Again,"- "saw," "again." It would be proper here and in the 
next line to arrange the emphasis thus : lt Again I saw, again I 
heard the rolling river, the morning bird." The emphasis on " river" 
may be omitted. It is proper to emphasize "beauty" and also 
"stole "in the fourteenth line, and to suppress the emphasis on 
"senses," but, to prevent too much repetition of falls at the end of 
the lines, suppress the emphasis on "stole;" to avoid jerkiness. that 
on '' beauty," especially as this word has already been emphasized. 



A GKEYPOKT LEGEND, 1797. 

BY BEET HAETE. 

They ran through the streets of the seaport town, 

They peered from the decks of the ships where they lay ; 
The cold sea fog that came whitening down 
"Was never as cold or white as they. 
" Ho, Starbuck and Pickney and Tenterden ! 
Run for your shallops, gather your men, 
Scatter your boats on the lower bay." 

Give the first two lines with spirit, the second in lower pitch, the 
third and fourth slowly and in still lower pitch. Make the last three 
lines dramatic; personating the rough seaman with loud voice, very 
fast as if calling to a distance ; rise from the beginning of the third 
line ; with each clause rise a little higher. Defer the bend from 
"Starbuck" and "Picknev" to "Tenterden." 



132 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

Good cause for fear ! In the thick mid- day 

The hulk that lay by the rotten pier, 
Filled with children in happy play, 
Parted its moorings and drifted clear. 
Drifted clear beyond reach or call, — 
Thirteen children there were in all, — 
All adrift in the lower bay ! 

Give this stanza in an intense, agitated tone. In the last five 
lines there should be tremor in the voice. Prolong "clear" in 
the fifth line. In the last line " all " should be given with the 
bend ; the partial close comes on " adrift." The sixth line is paren- 
thetical. 

Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all! 

She will not float till the turning tide!" 
Said his wife, " my darling will hear my call, 
Whether in sea or heaven she bide." 

And she lifted a quavering voice and high, 
Wild and strange as a sea bird's cry, 
Till they shuddered and wondered at her side. 

Personate the skipper and his wife. In the first line, "God help 
us all " should be given rapidly, almost like an ejaculation ; the 
second line should be given more despairingly, as it is an expression 
of fear that the ship would sink before they could reach her. With 
the fifth line rise in pitch ; with the next, still higher, suggesting 
half-insanity. In the last line, descend in pitch : give color of terror 
and wonder. 

The fog drove down on each laboring crew, 

Veiled each from each and the sky and shore; 
There was not a sound but the breath they drew, 
And the lap of water and creak of oar; 

And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown 
O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone. 
But not from the lips that had gone before. 

In the second line "each," "sky," "shore," are all emphasized, 
because each idea is distinguished from the rest. The last line de- 
scends in pitch ; it should be given with the waving slide. The tone 
should be soft and sad. 



APPENDIX. 133 

They come no more. But they tell the tale 

That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef, 
The mackerel-fishers shorten sail, 

For the signal they know will bring relief, — 
For the voices of children, still at play 
In phantom hulk that drifts alway 
Through channels whose waters never fail. 
Give the last three lines with feeling, in a soft tone. 
It is but a foolish shipmari's tale, 
A theme for a poet's idle page, 
But still when the mists of doubt prevail. 
And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age. 
We hear from the misty troubled shore 
The voice of the children gone before, 
Drawing the soul to its anchorage. 
In the sixth line, it is better not to defer emphasis from " children " 
to the restrictive clause u gone before," because the first expresses 
the most important thought in the poem. 



THE KISING IN 1776. 

BY T. BUCHANAN READ. 

Out of the North the wild news came, 
Far flashing on its wings of flame, 
Swift as the boreal light which flies 
At midnight through the startled skies, 
And there was tumult in the air, 

The fife's shrill note, the drwn's loud beat. 
And through the wide land everywhere 

The answering tread of hurrying feet ; 
While the first oath of Freedom's gun 
Came on the blast from Lexington ; 
And Concord, roused, no longer tame, 
Forgot her old baptismal name, 
Made bare her patriot arm of power 
And swelled the discord of the hour. 
There is no emphasis on u North " in the first line, there being no 
discrimination as to where the news came from. No emphasis is 



134 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

needed on " news," as that something has been already said about 
it is presupposed. The bend comes after the first line ; in the second, 
"wings of flame" may refer to beacon-lights, that perhaps started 
the news, or it may mean only swift as flame. With "flame" the 
voice may fall, partly for variety, partly because monotony should 
be avoided when depicting hurry or startled feeling. In the fourth 
line, emphasis may be deferred to "skies," but the effect would not 
be as good, a succession of falls here being monotonous. The fifth, 
sixth, seventh and eighth lines should be lower in pitch ; there 
should be a hush in the voice, as if to listen. The names of different 
places, when used as in the tenth and eleventh lines, are not gener- 
ally emphasized. In this case,- however, emphasis may come on 
"Concord," because of the antithesis (not a happy one, by the way, 
between a place and a quality) with "discord" in the fourteenth 
line, although it is better to defer it to the latter. If both words 
were emphasized, the effect would be unpleasant to the ear. 

Within its shade of elm and oak, 

The church of Berkley Manor stood, 
There Sunday found the rural folk, 
And some esteemed of gentle blood. 

In vain their feet with loitering tread 
Passed 'mid the graves where rank is naught; 
All could not read the lesson taught 
In that republic of the dead. 

The last four lines express the thought that those of gentle blood 
could not see the leveling tendency of the graveyard. "All" im- 
plies that some (probably of the poor) could see this. Slight em- 
phasis on " read," stronger on " all " in the seventh line. 

How sweet the hour of Sabbath talk, 

The vale with peace and sunshine full 
Where all the happy people walk, 

Decked in their homespun flax and wool ! 
Where youth's gay hats with blossoms bloom ; 
And every maid with simple art, 
Wears on her breast, like her own heart, 
A bud whose depths are all perfume ; 
While every garment's gentle stil- 
ls breathing rose and lavender. 



APPENDIX. 135 

All through the third stanza keep the tones soft and gentle. The 
partial close comes at the end of the first, fourth, fifth and eighth 
lines. Emphasis may fall on " bud," but it is better to defer it to 
"perfume." If emphasis falls on "garment's" in the ninth line, 
it is because the poet has done speaking of the persons, and now 
wants to say that their very clothes were fragrant. " Every gar- 
ment" is perhaps only another way of saying, every girl. If so, 
"garment" should not be emphasized. 

The pastor came ; his snowy locks 

Hallowed his brow of thought and care; 

And calmly, as shepherds lead their flecks, 
He led into the house of prayer. 

The pastor rose: the prayer was strong ; 

The psalm was warrior David's song ; 

The text, a few short words of might, — 
" The Lord of hosts shall arm the right /" 

There should be a good deal of verve in this stanza. In the third 
and fourth lines there is antithesis between " shepherds " and " He." 
Emphasis may come on both, but it is better to defer it to the latter. 
Very strong emphasis in the last line. 

He spoke of wrongs too long endured, 
Of sacred rights to be secured ; 
Then from his patriot tongue of flame 
The startling words for Freedom came. 
The stirring sentences he spake 
Compelled the heart to glow or quake, 
And rising on his there's broad wing, 

And grasping in his nervous hand 

The imaginary battle-brand, 
In face of death he dared to fling 
Defiance to a tyrant king. 

This stanza should be given with a great deal of spirit, all emphasis 
should be strong. Emphasis might fall on both "wrongs" in the 
first, and "rights" in the second line, but the effect would be jerky, 
as it would be to emphasize both "endured" and ''secured." In 
the tenth, strong emphasis should fall on "death," and very strong 
on "Defiance" in the eleventh line. The first two lines should both 



136 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

end with the partial close, each being a separate statement, or the 
first line may rise; and being understood before the second line t 
The sixth line should also end with the partial close, the seventh 
and ninth lines being given with the bend. The seventh, eighth 
and ninth should rise by grades, in pitch. If it can be avoided, 
never emphasize in the same place in two successive lines. 

Even as he spoke, his frame renewed 
In eloquence of attitude, 
Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher; 
Then swept his kindling glance of fire 
From startled pew to breathless choir ; 
When suddenly — his mantle wide 
His hands impatient flung aside, 
And, lo ! he met their wondering eyes 
Complete in all a warrior's guise. 

Give this stanza with great force ; " renewed in eloquence of atti- 
tude" in the first and the second lines, is slightly parenthetical; it 
should be given with the bend. The partial close should end the 
third, fifth, and seventh lines, or, if preferred, the seventh may be 
given with the bend, and the emphasis on "aside " omitted. 

A moment — there was awful pause, — 
When Berkley cried, " Cease, traitor I cease ! 
God's temple is the house of peace /" 

The other shouted, " Nay, not so, 
When God is with our righteous cause, 
His holiest places then are ours, 
His temples are our forts and towers, 

That frown upon the tyrant foe ; 
In this, the dawn of Freedom s day, 
There is a time to fight and pray /" 

Berkley's cry should be louder, and higher in pitch ; the pastor's 
answer, lower; the repetition of "cease" shows increasing excite- 
ment. Emphasis may fall also on "temple" in the third line. 
In the sixth, "ours" should be strongly emphasized, "holiest" 
slightly, or not at all. It is proper to let emphasis fall on " frown " 
in the eighth line, but better to defer it to ''foe." In the tenth line it 
may be suppressed on rt fight " and "pray," " and " being emphasized 
instead. *' Cease, traitor ! cease ! God's temple," etc , second and 



APPENDIX. 137 

third lines, is the equivalent of the chuvh is no place for war, and 
you are in it. 

And now before the open door — 

The warrior priest had ordered so — 
The enlisting trumpet's sudden roar 
Eang through the chapel, o'er and o'er ; 

Its long reverberating blow 
So loud and clear, it seemed the ear 
Of dusty death must wake and hear. 
And there the startling drum and^/e 
Fired the living with fiercer life ; 
While overhead, with wild increase, 
Forgetting its ancient toll of peace, 

The great bell swung as ne'er before: 
It seemed as it would never cease ; 
And every word its ardor flung 
From off its jubilant iron tongue 

Was, War ! War ! War ! 

The second line is parenthetical, and should be lower in pitch. 
Stress should come on "Rang" in the fourth line; here it is an in- 
transitive verb ; you cannot say — rang a blow. In the seventh line, 
give the color of death in the tone ; there is strong emphasis on 
"living" in the ninth line. Give the eleventh line in a soft tone. 
Prolong "great" in the twelfth ; "as ne'er before," should be lower 
in pitch, and almost in monotone. " War ! War ! War !" in the last 
line is an example of onomatopoeia; prolong the r in each. 

" Who dares /" — this was the patriot's cry, 
As striding from the desk he came, — 

" Come out with me, in Freedom's name, 
For her to live, for her to dieV 
A hundred hands flung up reply, 
A hundred voices answered, I. 

Strong emphasis falls on "dares" in the first, on "me" and 
" Freedom" in the third line. The last part of the first and all of the 
second line are parenthetical, and lower in pitch. The fourth line 
contains a distinct antithesis — either to live for her, or to die for 
her. Strong emphasic should fall on " hundred " in the fifth, and 
on "voices" in the sixth line. "I" should be very strongly em- 
phasized, and higher in pitch. 



138 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYIXG YEAR. 

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 

Yes, the year is growing old, 

And his eye is pale and bleared ; 
Death with frosty hand and cold, 
-Plucks the old man by the beard, 
Sorely, — sorely. 
Throughout the poem use pure and simple tones. The inflections 
are the same as in conversation, but the tone-color is given in pass- 
ing through the poet's mind. Give the first line with tenderness, 
with elastic tone. It is proper to emphasize "beard" in the fourth 
line, but better to keep the voice up on a level in order to come down 
strongly on "sorely." The last line descends in pitch with each 
word. Give them both with full tones. Repeat '"sorely" with 
deep feeling, giving in both voice and face the expression of sore- 
ness. 

The leaves are falling, falling 

Solemnly and slow; 
Caw, caw ! the rooks are calling, 
It is a sound of woe, 
A sound of woe ! 
The first line is a mere statement, but should be given in a tender 
tone. The second "falling" should rise in pitch. "Caw, caw," in 
the third line, is an example of onomatopoeia ; it should be given in 
monotone, high pitch, the second "caw" on a level with the first, 
both very hard and unintellectual. It is proper to rise or fall in 
pitch with the second "caw," but better to keep the voice on a level. 
The crow sound should be imitated as closely as possible. Which- 
ever tone (intellectual or the opposite) is chosen for the first "caw," 
must be repeated with the second. The fourth line rises, the fifth 
descends, in pitch. Prolong "woe" in both lines. Suggest the 
sighing and wailing of the wind. Human sympathy now comes in. 
The first "woe" should be given with the wave, the second with 
the perfect close. 

Through woods and mountain-passes, 

The winds like anthems roll : 
They are chanting solemn masses, 
Singing, Pray for this poor soul ! 
Pray, — pray ! 



APPENDIX. 139 

Begin low. The three last lines should be given in a solemn 
tone. In the fourth and fifth lines each " pray " should descend in 
pitch. Give each clause after "singing" with the waving slide. 
Roll out like an organ. 

The hooded clouds, like friars, 

Tell their beads in drops of rain, 
And patter their doleful prayers ; 

But their prayers are all in vain, 
All in vain. 

The partial close (because of strong emphasis) comes on " friars" 
in the first, and on " prayers" in the third line. In the fourth line, 
"all in vain" is given with the wave; the perfect close comes on 
"vain" in the fifth line. Both lines should be given with feeling. 

There he stands in the foul weather, 

The foolish, fond Old Year, 
Crowned with wild flowers and with heather, 

Like weak, despised Lear, 
A king, — a king! 

Throw out the voice. Give the stanza slowly, but with snap. 
The fourth line ends with the partial close (on account of strong 
emphasis). Give the first "king" in the fifth line with the bend; 
the perfect close comes on the second. Both should be given with 
force. 

Then comes the summer-like day, 

Bids the old man rejoice/ 
ITisjoyf his last ! Oh the old man gray 
Loveth her.ever soft voice, 
Gentle and low. 

Use soft tones all through the stanza. The partial close comes on 
"rejoice" in the second and on "joy" in the third line; the perfect 
close on "last" in the third line. Give the same inflection to "soft. " 
in the fourth, and to "gentle" and "low" in the fifth line. 

To the crimson woods he saith, — 

And the voice gentle and low 
Of the soft air, like a daughter s breath, — 
u Pray do not mock me so ! 
Do not laugh at me !" 



1 40 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

The fourth and fifth lines should be given with the rising slide (to 
express pathos). Rise in pitch in the fourth and again in the fifth 
line. Imitate the querulous tones of an old man. 

And now the sweet day is dead ; 
' Cold in his arms it lies ; 
No stain from its breath is spread 
Over the glassy skies, 
No mist or stain ! 

Prolong "cold" in the second line; the whole line should be 
given in monotone. 

Then, too, the Old Year dieth, 

And the forests utter a moan, 
Like the voice of one who crieth 

In the wilderness alone, 
" Vex not his ghost !" 

Prolong " moan," but do not emphasize it, as this would interfere 
with the suggestion of the moaning of the wind. Prolong "alone" 
in the fourth, and "Vex " in the fifth line. Make the last line windy 
and mysterious, a moan, not a loud cry, all in monotone, either in 
high or low pitch, as preferred. 

Then comes, with an awful roar, 

Gathering and sounding on, 
The storm-wind from Labrador, 

The wind Euroclydon, 
The storm-wind ! 

Give this stanza with great force; increasing rapidity and inten- 
sity through the first three lines, rising in pitch with each. Descend 
in pitch with the last two, the last line very low. Prolong "storm- 
wind " in the last line. The first three lines are given with the 
bend ; the fourth ends w ith the partial, the fifth with the perfect close. 

Howl! howl/ and from the forest 

Sweep the red leaves away ! 
Would the sins that thou abhorrest, 

O soul ! could thus decay, 
And be swept away I 



APPENDIX. 141 

Give the first "howl" in as low pitch as possible, the second, a 
little higher (both with very strong emphasis). Any interjection 
expressing greater feeling should rise in pitch. The rest of the line 
should be lower in pitch. Give the second line with great fervor, 
the third, fourth and fifth lines with pathos, in a softer tone. Rise 
in pitch with the last two lines. End the second line with the per- 
fect close ; give the last two with the rising slide, expressing pathos. 

For there shall come a mightier blast ; 

There shall be a darker day ; 
And the stars, from heaven down cast, 
Like red leaves be swept away ! 
Kvrie, Eleyson ! 
Christe, Eleyson \ 

Give the first four lines with great force. Make the second line 
lower, the third higher, and the fourth again lower in pitch. Rise 
in pitch with the fifth, and still higher with the sixth line. End the 
second line with the partial, the fourth line with the perfect, close. 
Give the last two lines with the rising slide, and in a pleading tone. 
The wind takes the words up like an organ. They are a prayer also, 
and express the natural voice of humanity. 

"Kyrie, Eleyson," Lord, have mercy! " Christe, Eleyson," Christ, 
have mercy. Pronounce, Kerea Elison, Christa Elison. 



ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 

BY JOIIN DEYDEN. 

'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won 

By Philip's warlike son. 
Aloft, in awful state, 
The godlike hero sat 

On his imperial throne. 

His valiant peers were placed around, 

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound 

So should desert in arms be crowned. 

The lovely Thais, by his side, 

Sat like a blooming Eastern bride, 

In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 



142 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

Happy, happy, happy pair ! 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave deserves the fair. 

There is a sligh^emphasis on "royal feast," a stronger one on " Per- 
sia," in the first line. Begin to go straight down from ■' Aloft " in the 
third, to " throne " in the fifth line. Partial close comes on " throne," 
because this sentence really forms with the next a loose sentence. 
Partial close a'so on "bound" in the seventh, on "bride" (because 
of the strong emphasis) in the tenth, and on "brave" (strongly em- 
phasized) in the thirteenth line. In the eleventh line, "pride" is 
slightly emphasized. Give the last four lines in a tone of exulta- 
tion. In the twelfih line, rise in pitch with the second " happy," 
descend with the third. In the next two lines, rise; in the last, 
descend in pitch. 

Ttmotheus, placed on high 

Amid the tuneful choir, 

With flying fingers touched the lyre. 
The trembling notes ascend the sky, 

And heavenly joys inspire. 
The song began from Jove, 
Who left his blissful seats above ; 
Such is the power of mighty love. 
A dragon s fiery form belied the god ; 
Sublime on radiant spheres he rode, 

When he to fair Olympia pressed, 
And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world. 
The listening crowd admire the lofty sound ; 
A present deity ! they shout around ; 
A present deity ! the vaulted roofs rebound. 

With ravished ears 

The monarch hears ; 

Assumes the god, 

Affects to nod, 
And seems to shake the spheres. 

Who was, is understood before " placed on high " in the first line. 
The bend on " Timotheus" in the first should be deferred to tl choir " 
(end of the relative clause) in the second line. There is a strong 



APPENDIX. 143 

emphasis on "Jove " in the sixth and on "love" in the eighth line, 
stress on "Such," slight emphasis on " dragon," strong emphasis on 
"belied" in the ninth line, and on "A present deity" in the four- 
teenth and fifteenth lines. The first " A present deity" is loud, the 
second is softer, like an echo. " They shout around," in the four- 
teenth line, is merely a circumstance. There is a slight emphasis 
on " roofs" in the fifteenth, and on { 'god" in the eighteenth line. 
The praise of Bacchus, then, the sweet musician sung, 
Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young. 
The jolly god in triumph comes ! 
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums. 
Flushed with a purple grace, 
He shows his honest face. 

Now, give the hautboys breath, he comes/ he comes/ 
Bacchus, ever fair and young, 
Drinking joys did first ordain. 
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure; 
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure ; 
Rich the treasure, 
Sweet the pleasure ; 
Sweet is pleasure after pain. 
" Then " in the first line is merely a circumstance. In the seventh 
line, give the first "Comes" in higher, and the second instill higher 
pitch. There should be a short pause after "sweet" and after "is" 
in the last line ; give the line in a soft tone. 

Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain, 
Fought all his battles o'er again ; 
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain. 
The master saw the madness rise, 
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes ; 
And while he heaven and earth defied, 
Changed his hand, and checked his pride, 
He chose a mournful muse 
Soft pity to infuse. 
He sang Darius, great and good, 
By too severe a fate, 
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, 
Fallen from his high estate, 
And weltering in his blood ; 



144 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

Deserted at his utmost need 
By those his former bounty fed, 
On the bare earth exposed he lies, 
With not & friend to close his eyes. 

With downcast look the joyless victor sat, 

Revolving in his altered soul 

The various turns of chance below ; 

And now and then a sigh he stole, 

And tears began to flow. 

The sixth to the ninth lines form really a compact sentence, both 
the sixth and seventh given with the bend. If a semicolon instead of 
a comma, is preferred after " pride" in the seventh line, then should be 
understood before ''changed," and both "changed" and "checked" 
emphasized slightly. Beginning with the tenth line, descend in pitch 
by grades through the two following lines, the voice growing softer. 
With the fifth "fallen" rise a little in pitch, and connect it with 
what follows. Give the eighteenth line in a very soft tone. In the 
twenty-first line " below " should be a little more strongly emphasized 
than " chance." 

The mighty master smiled, to see 
That love was in the next degree ! 
'Twas but a kindred sound to move, 
For pity melts the mind to love. 

Softly sweet in Lydian measures, 

Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. 

War, he sung, is toil and trouble; 

Honor, but an empty bubble; 

Never ending, still beginning, 

Fighting still, and still destroying. 

If the world be worth thy winning, 
Think, oh ! think it worth enjoying ! 

Lovely Thais sits beside thee; 

Take the good the gods provide thee. 
The many rend the skies with loud applause; 
So love was crowned, but music won the cause. 

The prince, unable to conceal his pain, 

Gazed on the fair 

Who caused his care, 



APPENDIX. 145 

And sighed and looked; sighed and looked ; 

Sighed and looked ; and sighed again ; 
At length with love and wine at once oppressed, 
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. 

" Smiled " in the first line would take the bend if it were not too 
closely connected with what follows ; it is very slightly emphasized. 
The third line is given with the bend because the related sequel 
follows. There is strong emphasis on "love" in the second, slight 
on " love" in the fourth line. From the fifth to the tenth line, vary 
the pitch. The clauses — " Never ending, still beginning, Fighting 
still, and still destroying " form a series ; defer emphasis to the last. 
Each of the first three is given with a slight bend. The eleventh 
and twelfth lines form a compact sentence, then being understood 
before " Think." In the sixteenth line, defer emphasis from " won " 
to "cause." In the seventeenth, defer the bend from "prince" to 
" pain " (end of descriptive clause). If " prince" had been strongly 
emphasized, the bend would not have been deferred. In the twen- 
tieth and twenty-first lines, give each "sighed and looked" with the 
bend. 

Now strike the golden lyre again ; 
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain : 
Break his bands of sleep asunder, 
And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. 
Hark ! hark ! the horrid sound 
Hath raised up his head, 
As awaked from the dead, 
And amazed he stares around. 
Revenge I revenge ! Timotheus cries ; 
See the furies arise ! 
See the snakes that they rear, 
How they hiss in their hair, 
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes ! 
Behold a ghastly band, 
Each a torch in his hand ! 
These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, 
And unburied, remain, 
Inglorious on the plain. 
'Give the vengeance due 
To the valiant crew. 

10 



146 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

Behold how they toss their torches on high ! 
How they point to the Persian abodes, 
And glittering temples of their hostile gods ! 
The princes applaud with a furious joy ; 
And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy I 
Thais led the way, 
To light him Jo his prey ; 
And like another Helen, fired another Troy. 
Give the whole stanza with force. Vary the pitch to suit the sen- 
timent. In the first two lines, rise from the beginning in pitch ; in 
the next two, rise still more. In compound verbs, like break asunder 
(third line), emphasize the last part. Stress falls on " rouse," in 
the fourth line. The first "hark" (fifth line) is lower, the second 
" hark " still lower in pitch. The fifth to the eighth lines should be 
given very fast. In the ninth line, emphasize alike the first and the 
second "revenge." In the tenth line, "arise" is slightly empha- 
sized. Stress falls on "hiss," in the twelfth, and on "sparkles," 
in the thirteenth line. Prolong the double s in "hiss;" defer the 
emphasis from "sparkles" to " eyes." End the sixteenth line with 
either the partial or the perfect close ; the first is easier here. As a 
rule, except in loose sentences, use one or the other, according to the 
variety needed in the sentence. In the twenty sixth line, "Thais" 
is slightly, in the twenty-eighth, " Helen" is strongly emphasized. 
Thus long ago, 

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, 
While organs yet were mute, 
Timotheus, to his breathing flute 
And sounding lyre, 
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. 
At last divine Cecilia came, 
Inventress of the vocal frame. 
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store 
Enlarged the former narrow bounds, 
And added length to solemn sounds, 
With nature's mother-wit, and arts iinknoicn before. 
Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 

Or both divide the crown ; 
He raised a mortal to the skies; 
She drew an angel duu-n. 



APPENDIX. 147 

In the first line, as is understood before "long ago," and so then 
before " Timotheus" in the fourth, the first six lines forming a com- 
pact sentence. In the thirteenth line, either is understood before 
"let old Timotheus," the last four lines forming also a compact sen- 
tence. In the seventh line " Cecilia," and in the eighth, '' vocal 
frame," are strongly emphasized. In the twelfth line, defer em- 
phasis from " mother-wit " to " unknown before." In the thirte nth 
line, emphasize either "yield " or "prize." In the fourteenth line, 
"both " is slightly, "divide" is strongly emphasized. In the fif- 
teenth line, "skies" may be emphasized or not, as preferred. At 
the end of the last line, to the earth is understood. There should be 
a slight pause after " she" and after " angel," and also after " He" in 
the preceding line. 



HERVE KIEL. 

BY ROBEBT BROWNING. 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, 

Did the English fight the French — woe to France 1 
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, 
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, 
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Ranee, 
With the English fleet in view. 

Browning's verse lends itself generally to strong, but not much to soft 
effects; it often jars on the ear. In the first line, " sea" and 'Hogae" 
are strongly emphasized. In the second line, " woe to France" is 
lower in pitch ; prolong " woe." Give the last part of the third line 
very fast. In this line, " blue," and in the next, " pursue," are given 
with the bend; only independent clauses beginning with like are 
given with the falling slide. If this is preferred here instead of the 
bend, make the clause " Like a crowd," etc., independent. Do not 
read it like a parenthesis. After " porpoises," which is understood. 
There being a strong comparison, both " porpcises " and "sharks" 
should be strongly emphasized. In the last line, " in view " should 
be lower in pitch. 

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase, 
First and foremost, of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville ; 
Close on him fled (great and small), 
Twenty- two good ships in all ; 



148 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

And they signaled to the place, 
" Help the winners of a race ! 
Get us guidance, give ns harbor, take us quick — or quicker still, 
Here's the English can and will!" 

The first two lines mean that Damfreville, in his great ship, was 
first and foremost of the squadron that had escaped so far. In the 
last three lines, sing out as from a distance. Begin with the tone 
back in the mouth, letting it come forward as they draw near. In 
reality, they no doubt used flags as signals, but it is proper, for dra- 
matic effect, to represent them as calling out. "Or quicker still," in 
the seventh line, and the whole of the last line are lower in pitch. 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board ; 
"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" 
laughed they ; 
"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, 
Shall the Formidable here with her twelve and eighty guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, 

Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, 
And with flow at full beside ? 
Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring ! Rather say, 

While rock stands or water runs, 
Not a ship will leave the bay /" 

In the first line, "and leapt on board," and "laughed they," in 
the second line, are low in pitch. Before "Rocks to starboard" 
(third line) with is understood. Make the pilots' tone very gruff. 
In each of the fourth, fifth and sixth lines, rise a little in pitch. 
Shall she is understood before " Trust to enter " (sixth line). The 
seventh line is lower, the eighth is higher in pitch ; in the ninth 
line, "Reach the mooring" is lower. Suggest in the tone: Why 
we never heard of such a thing. In the tenth line either rise or fall 
as preferred. In the fourth line, ■" twelve and eighty guns," means 
probably that there were twelve large and eighty small ones. 

Then was called a council straight ; 

Brief and bitter the debate ; 
" Here's the English at our heels ; would you have them take in tow 
All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow, 

For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 



APPENDIX. 149 

Better run the ships aground!" 
(Ended Damfreville his speech.) 

" Not a minute more to wait ! 

Let the captains all and each 
Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach ! 

France must undergo her fate." 

Let the tone be animated but conversational. Give the first line 
fast. The second should be lower in pitch. " Bow " in the fourth line 
should be pronounced as if rhyming with now. The fifth line should 
descend in pitch. In the eighth, ninth and tenth lines, the tone should 
be louder, as if giving a command. The last line should be lower in 
pitch, with the tone of I can't help it, intense, but simple and 
conversational. The tenth line means go ashore, blow the vessels 
up and burn them. "Ashore" and "blow up," are given with the 
bend, "beach," with the partial close. This is the correct way, but 
if a climax is intended, or, for the sake of variety, the partial close 
may come on ''ashore" and "blowup." In the last line, a short 
pause should follow " France." 

"Give the word !" Eut no such word 

Was ever spoke or heard ; 
For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck, amid all these — 
A captain? A lieutenant? A mate — first, second, third ? 

No such man of mark, and meet 

With his betters to compete ! 
But a simple Breton sailor, pressed by Tronville for the fleet, 
A poor coasting pilot he, — Herve Kiel the Croisickese. 

" Give the word," in a tone of command. The second line and the 
last part of the first, are lower in pitch, " heard " in the second line, 
still lower. In the third line "up stood," etc., form a series. Give 
the fourth line with the tone of: Well, what was it? " A Lieutenant " 
is higher in pitch, "first, second, third," are climateric, as if asking 
a person to guess which it was. Do not give them deliberately, as 
if they were the heads of a sermon. "Belters" in the sixth line is 
slightly emphasized. 

And " What mockery or malice have we here?" cries Herve Kiel ; 

" Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, fools or rogues ? 

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell 



150 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

On ray fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, 
: Twixt the offing here and Greve, where the river disembogues? 
Are you bought by English gold ? Is it love the lying's for ? 
"Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay, 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet and ruin France I That were worse than fifty Hogues! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth I Sirs, believe me there's a way ! 

Give this stanza with the natural changes of the voice, not square 
and hard. "Shoals" in the third line is given with the partial 
close or else with the bend ; the last part of the line rises in pitch. 
" What mockery or malice," etc. (first line), is the same as stuff 
and nonsense. 'Talk to me of rocks and shoals," etc. (third line), 
expresses I knoiv the whole way minutely. The first part of the 
sixth line forms an antithesis with the last part. In the ninth line the 
emphasis may be deferred from "fast" to "Solidor." The tenth line 
is lower in pitch, the first part of the eleventh is louder and higher, 
the last part, a little lower in pitch. Avoid deep, hard inflection. 
Give *' Sirs, believe me there's a way " in the tone of: They say there's 
no way. I say there is/ 

" Only let me lead the line, 
Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this Formidable clear, 
Make the others follow mine, 
And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well, 
Bight to Solidor, past Greve, 
And there lay them safe and sound ; 

And if one ship misbehave, 
Keel so much as grate the ground, 
Why, I've nothing but my life; here my head /" cries Herv^ Riel. 

''Line" in the first, "steer" in the Second, and "clear" in 
the third line, are given with the partial close; 'mine" in the 
fourth, "well" in the fifth, and "Solidor" in the sixth, with the 
bend. "Greve" in the sixth, and "life" and "head" in the last 
line, are given with the partial close. Say, "Why, I've nothing 
but my life," etc., in an indifferent, careless tone. 



APPENDIX. 151 

Not a minute more to wait ! 

"Steer us in, then, small and great! 
Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron !" cried its chief. 

" Captains, give the sailor place/ 
He is admiral, in brief/' 

Still the North wind, by God's grace, 

See the noble fellow's face 

As the big ship, with a bound. 

Clears the entry like a hound, 
Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound. 

There icas, is understood before " Not a minute " in the first line. 
In the first, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth lines, it is the poet 
himself who speaks; in the second, third, fourth and fifth, it is Damfre- 
ville. Though allowable, it is better to have no emphasis on " helm." 
" line," or " squadron," since Herv^ Kiel had already said that he 
would take the helm and lead the line, and " most and least" implies 
the squadron. Prolong "save" in the third line. The tone in the 
fourth and first part of the fifth line should be louder, as if giving 
the word of command. Make this phrase a little lower in pitch, and 
the sixth line still lower. Give the seventh with spirit; raise the 
voice to challenge attention and arouse enthusiasm. In the last line, 
give strong emphasis to " inch," less strong to "sea's;" ".were the 
wide sea's profound" should be lower in pitch. Make the whole 
of the tenth line strong. 

See, safe through shoal and rock, 

How they follow in a flock. 
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground, 

Not a spar that comes to grief ! 

The peril, see, is past, 

All are harbored to the last, 
And just as Herve Kiel hollas, " Anchor !" — sure as fate, 

Up the English come, too late. 

Give the first line fast. The second line expresses : See how they 
follow, flocking after. In line third, the emphasizing '* not," both 
times, implies just as he said. In the fourth line, "spar" is em- 
phasized, as it has not been mentioned before; "to the last," "sure 
as fate," ft too late," in the last three lines are lower in pitch. " An- 



152 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

chor," in the seventh line, is higher. The seventh line is too much 
like prose ; it can be scanned only in this way : " And just as Herve 
Kiel hollas 'Anchor!'" 

-So the storm subsides to calm ; 
They see the green trees wave 
On the heights o'erlooking Greve; 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
" Just our rapture to enhance, 
Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth and glare askance 
As they cannonade away ! 
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Ranee !" 
Now hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance ! 

The fourth line should be given in a soft tone, and in lower pitch, 
the fifth to the eighth lines should be higher and louder. In the 
ninth line, after "pleasant riding," of a vessel at anchor is under- 
stood. 

Out burst all with one accord, 
" This is Paradise for hell ! 
Let France, let France's kiiig, 
Thank the man that did the thing !" 
What a shout, and all one v:ord, 

" Herve Kiel!" 
As he stepped in front once more, 
Not a symptom of surprise 
In the frank blue Breton eyes, 
Just the same man as before. 

In the fifth line, "what a shout" should be lower in pitch. In 
the sixth line, suggest the shouting of many voices at a distance. 
The seventh line should be given with the bend, because it depends 
on what follows. There was, is understood before " Not a symptom," 
etc. (eighth line). 

Then said Damfreville, "My friend, 
I must speak out at the end, 

Though I find the speaking hard ; 
Praise is deeper than the lips ; 
You have saved the king his ships, 
You must name your own reward. 



APPENDIX. 153 

' Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! 
Demand whatever you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 
Ask to heart's content and have ! or my name's not Damfreville" 

In the second line, "at the end " means at last. The partial close 
should come on "hard," "lips" and "eclipse" in the third, fourth 
and seventh lines. "Ships" and "will," in the fifth and eighth 
lines, should be given with the bend. The fifth line should express 
intense feeling. The sixth line should be lower in pitch, the seventh 
higher and louder, the ninth lower. The first two clauses in the 
tenth line should be louder and higher, the last lower in pitch. The 
eighth and ninth lines express: Whatever you ask, you can't ask 
enough. 

Then a beam of fun outbroke 

On the bearded mouth that spoke, 

As the honest heart laughed through 4 

Those frank eyes of Breton blue: 

" Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty's done, 
And from Malo Ttoads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run t — 
Since 'tis ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 
Come ! A good whole holiday / 
Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore /" 

That he asked, and that he got — nothing more. 

Give Herv^ Kiel's answer in the tone of an old sailor. The par- 
tial close should come on "blue," "holiday," "Belle Aurore" and 
"got" in the fourth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth lines. "Say," 
"done," "run," "may," "ashore" in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth 
and ninth lines, and "asked" in the twelfth line, are given with 
the bend. The seventh line is lower in pitch. " What is it but 
a run" means Oh, iCs not much, only a run. In the twelfth line, 
"and that he got" should be lower in pitch; "nothing more," 
still lower. 

Name and deed alike are lost ; 

Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 



154 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

Not a head in white and black 

On a single fishing-smack, 
In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the 
bell. 

In the first line, emphasis may be deferred from "name" and 
"deed" to "alike." In the third line, "as it befell" should be 
lower in pitch. In the last line, "bore the bell" means gained the 
victory. There should be no emphasis here on "France," because 
she is (so to speak) one of the principal personages in the poem, 
and is kept in view throughout. 

Go to Paris ; rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 

On the Louvre, face and flank ; 
You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel. 

So, for better and for worse, 

Herve* Kiel, accept my verse/ 

In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife, the Belle Aurore! 

Emphasis may be deferred from " heroes " in the second line to 
"Louvre" in the next, or not, as preferred. In the third line, 
"face and flank" should be lower in pitch. The fifth line should 
be given in a soft tone, the sixth should be lower in pitch, the seventh 
stronger in tone ; either emphasis or stress may fall on " once more," 
but the latter is better. The last two lines mean again and again 
repeat this noble act. The idea is clear enough, but not its expression. 
In the last line, "Save the squadron" should be lower, "honor 
France" higher, "love thy wife " lower, " the Belle Aurore" still 
lower in pitch. It is better to let the emphasis fall on "wife" 
rather than defer it to "Belle Aurore," and to bring in the latter as 
an after thought following a long ellipsis. 



APPENDIX II. 



APPENDIX II. 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 

BY ROBERT R. RAYMOND.* 

Voice, in the generic sense, is a property of all living 
animals which are structurally endowed with a capacity 
to procure certain sounds uttered from the mouth : ar- 
ticulate voice, the organ of language — which, as the ve- 
hicle of thought and feeling, is the divinely ordered 
means of social intercourse and intellectual progress — 
belongs to man alone. The methods by which the in- 
tellectual attainments of any one member of the human 
family may thus become the possession of all are two — 
viz., speaking and singing. 

These must have been almost coeval in their origin ; 
for, as the deductions of reason assure us that the social 
necessities of the race must have very early given rise 
to spoken language, so a universal experience unites 
with remotest tradition in ascribing to every human 

* Editor's Note.— This es?ay, written by my father in 1877, for "John- 
son's Cyclopeedia," still possesses value for those who follow his method in 
teaching. In "The Universal Cyclopaedia," published by D. Appleton & 
Co., and the A. J. Johnson Co., New York City, a large part of it has been 
incorporated, without my father's name, in a general article on "Voice," 
with the subscription, "Revised by Alexander Melville Bell." Prof. Bell 
was a friend of my father, and the essay here reprinted contains a recog- 
nition of his distinguished merit's as an instructor, and also as the inventor of 
" visible speech," which has been retained in the revised article. It need not 
be said that revision and additions by such an authority must be valuable, 
But I have not incorporated Prof. Bell's improvements in this republication, 
preferring that my father's name should be attached to his own work. 

( 157 ) 



158 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

being a religious impulse which finds its most ade- 
quate expression in song. The least civilized tribes 
have always celebrated their festivals of worship with 
rude rhythmic .chants, while the cultivated nations of 
all time have cherished music as the ethereal medium 
of poetry and a potent agent in the culture of the soul. 
For the musical side of vocal art science has already 
done much by defining its forms and improving its 
processes. Mathematics and physics have expounded 
the laws of sound ; philosophers have discovered the 
immutable principles upon which melody, harmony, 
and rhythm depend ; and the definite nature of the 
work to be accomplished in giving force and expression 
to the singing voice has made it possible to conduct 
that work on a well-ascertained scientific basis. But to 
the cultivation of speech, a faculty normally universal, 
and hence much more intimate and important in its 
relations to man — the minister of his highest social 
welfare and the agent of his noblest progress — its more 
complicated mechanical processes and the indefinable 
character of its melodic scale have hitherto presented 
the most formidable obstacles. 

In many respects, however, what has been accom- 
plished for one of these arts enures also to the benefit 
of the other. In both, the instrument, at least, is the 
same, though put to somewhat different uses. The im- 
portant results of recent investigation in the domain of 
acoustics, though less obviously practical in their ap- 
plication to speaking than to singing, cannot but be, in 
the end, of great advantage to both, and that aesthetic 
culture by which all forms of art are inspired to their 
lofty purpose is essential alike to music and to elocu- 
tion. 

The limitations of this article require that these con- 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 159 

tributions of science and experience to the culture of 
the human voice shall be treated with exclusive refer- 
ence to elocution. This may be done from a physio- 
logical, a physical, and a psychological point of view ; 
in other words, we may consider the instrument, its 
mechanical uses and processes, and those intellectual 
laws by which it is made to convey thought and emo- 
tion to the human soul. 

I. Of the physical apparatus employed in the pro- 
duction of voice the merest outline of description must 
suffice. Any good manual of anatomy will furnish the 
inquirer with the detailed discussion he may desire. If 
we begin to construct the mechanism of the voice as we 
would build an organ (to which it bears some analogy), 
we find at the base, in the human chest, the lungs, 
which perform the office of a bellows to furnish air for 
the instrument above. This air is forced by their ac- 
tion through bronchial tubes, which, extending upward 
through either lung, gradually converge until they meet 
in a single tube, called the trachea, or wind-pipe, con- 
sisting of incomplete cartilaginous rings lying horizon- 
tally one above the other. At the upper end of the 
trachea is a funnel-shaped piece of mechanism, enlarg- 
ing upward and composed of various cartilages con- 
nected by ligaments, and moved by muscles. This is 
called the 'larynx. Through its centre, in continuation 
of the air-tube, runs a hollow passage, which terminates 
in a wide triangular opening. Across this are stretched 
two pairs of tense elastic membranes — the chordae vocales 
— which have the power both of moving together and 
of playing into each other. Of these, however, only one 
pair is immediately concerned in the production of 
tone. These are called, therefore, the true vocal cords. 
Between their fine edges there is a narrow opening or 



160 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

chink, called the glottis; and as these cords are at will 
made more or less tense, the wind that is forced through 
the opening causes them to vibrate audibly with vari- 
ous degrees of force and pitch. 

This is the genesis of voice : from this point the tone 
here generated undergoes only modifications of fulness 
and quality and such as combine to effect articulation. 
It now passes the pharynx, a membranous bag which 
leads both into the mouth and into the nose, being sepa- 
rated from the former by the curtain of the palate, and 
from the latter by a very thin osseous partition. This, 
together with the two false vocal cords and the anterior 
cavity of the mouth, together with the frontal cavities 
over the eyes and in the cheek-bones, constitutes a 
resonance-apparatus, a species of sounding-board, by 
which the voice is modified in respect to fulness and 
quality. How it is further affected by the teeth, the 
tongue, the palate, and the other organs of articulation 
we are yet to consider. 

II. Sound comes to our ears in two forms — as tone 
and as noise. Tone is sound caused by the regular 
periodic vibrations of the sounding body, such as is 
given out by musical instruments. Noise proceeds 
from irregular movements of the sounding body. The 
crash of thunder, the rattling of the streets, the discord 
which results from striking all the keys of a piano at 
once — these are noises. The sounds which we make 
in speaking consist of both tones and noises. 

Prof. Helmholtz, of Heidelberg, in his Lchre von den 
Tonempfendungen, has shown that for the production of 
every vowel-sound the cavity of the mouth is definitely 
tuned by the disposition of its various parts — the teeth, 
the tongue, the lips, the soft palate, the pharynx, etc. 
The air confined in the cavity of the mouth has, like 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 161 

any other body of confined air, its own rate of vibra- 
tion, and hence its own pitch, which varies with the 
variation of the cavity. The vowel-sound, therefore, is 
independent of the musical tone produced by the larynx, 
and is always the same, whether in the mouth of a man, 
a woman, or a child. This is true also of some of the 
consonant sounds, while others are merely noises pro- 
duced by the breath vibrating at points of resistance in 
partly-closed organs. Thus, every element of language 
has its own peculiar type — or Klang, as it is called by 
the Germans— which distinguishes it from all others. 
These characteristic sounds may be heard even in 
whispering. In speaking aloud they are combined 
with the noises (also formed in the mouth-cavity) and 
supported by the tones o*f the larynx. Speech thus re- 
sults from the combined working of two very different 
actions of the vocal organs. The difference between 
singing and speaking is, that the first employs pure 
tones, modified only, when words are used, by those rapid 
and scarcely- observable discords caused by the striking 
of the air upon the interior parts of the mouth ; while 
in speaking these noises predominate, and tone asserts 
itself only or mainly in the occasional prolongation of 
the vowel-sounds. 

Tone has three properties — strength, pitch, and qual- 
ity, called by the Germans Klangfarbe (tone-color), and 
by the French timbre (stamp). The latter term has 
come into very general use in English works upon the 
voice and its culture. The strength of a tone depends 
upon its amplitude, its pitch upon the rapidity, and its 
timbre upon the form, of the vibrations which produce 
it. As the strength of the tone depends upon the 
breadth of the sound-waves, this, in its turn, depends 
primarily upon the structure, and then upon the vol- 

11 



162 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

untary disposition or adjustment, of the vocal organs 
and of the resonance-apparatus. Much misdirected 
labor is sometimes expended in attempting to increase 
the power of the voice by harsh and straining exercise 
of its muscular organism, with a vague idea of impart- 
ing to them toughness and vigor. In view of the deli- 
cacy and tenderness of these ligaments, such a process 
must appear somewhat worse than useless. When 
once these parts are fully developed, it is not possible 
in this way to make a strong voice out of a weak one. 
Its tone may indeed be reinforced — first, by adding to 
the impulse which produces it through a greater exer- 
tion of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles; sec- 
ondly, by a proper adjustment of the vocal cords and 
the management of the breath ; and, thirdly, by the 
co-vibration of the chest, the mouth-cavities, and the 
bony parts of the head, so that whatever tends to give 
capacity to the one or firmness to the other contributes 
to this end. But when we come to consider the nature 
of timbre, and the ways of modifying it, we shall see 
that the processes which enter into that culture are 
nearly identical with what is necessary to this, and ex- 
actly adapted to impart to the voice not only a sweet 
and agreeable quality, but also that reach and ring 
which comprise all the best effects of power. 

The pitch of a tone depends upon the number of the 
vibrations in a given time by which it is produced ; the 
more rapid the vibrations the higher the pitch. The 
octave of a tone has exactly twice as many vibrations 
in the same time as the tone itself; the fifth above the 
first octave, three times; the major third above the 
second octave, five times; the fifth of the same octave, 
six times ; and the minor seventh of the same, seven 
times as many. Variations of pitch in the human 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 163 

voice are due exclusively to the action of the glottis and 
the ligaments of the larynx, and are subject to the uni- 
form laws by which the tones in hollow tubes ascend 
or descend according to the different lengths of the air- 
columns they contain, and in stringed instruments ac- 
cording to the greater or less tension, the extent, and 
the degree of vibrating surface in their strings. By 
means of the Laryngoscope (which see) the various 
movements of the larynx and vocal cords which com- 
bine these two principles in the production of tone 
have been accurately inspected and recorded. It is 
found that in giving forth the lowest tones of what is 
called the chest-voice the windpipe is enlarged to its ut- 
most capacity, the vocal cords are moved throughout 
their whole length with large, loose vibrations, which 
are communicated to all the interior parts of the larynx, 
and again, by resonance, to the confined air in the cav- 
ity of the chest. When to this is added a peculiar ex- 
pansion of the pharyngeal cavity, that full, rich qual- 
ity of the voice is produced to which Dr. Rush gave the 
name of orotund (from the ore rotundo of the Latin 
maxim), and to which the dramatic artist is indebted 
for some of his finest effects. As the scale is ascended 
the vocal cords swiftly meet and separate at each new 
tone, and are shortened and made more tense, as the 
strings of the violin are controlled by the ringers of the 
player. The tones of the head-voice (as it is usually 
styled) are produced by vibrations of the fine inner 
edges only of the chordae vocales. This, however, is but 
a general and imperfect view of a very complicated pro- 
cess, and makes no account of the expansion and con- 
traction of the trachea, with the consequent rise and 
fall of the larynx, and some other important modifica- 
tions. For we are less concerned at present to give an 



164 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

accurate description of the physiological processes than 
to expound the physical laws relating to them, in 
obedience to which the ^phenomena of voice are pro- 
duced. 

The division of the vocal scale into registers (chest- 
voice, head-voice, falsetto, etc.), their points of transi- 
tion, and the treatment of the singing voice with regard 
to them, about which a wide difference of opinion ex- 
ists, are less important in elocution, because the scale 
employed is more limited, little beyond the lower and 
a part of the middle register requiring cultivation, and 
that of a simpler character. Men speak (normally) an 
octave lower than women, employing usually only the 
chest-tones, rarely the head-tones, and never the fal- 
setto. The usual range of the male voice is from low 
P to A. Women use mostly the upper part of the 
chest register and the lower part of the falsetto, ranging 
from A below the line to B in the treble clef. Little 
children speak entirely in the falsetto. 

The upper part of the chest register — that is, the mid 
die voice — is best adapted to public speaking, being 
most capable of inflection, farthest of reach, and most 
easily sustained. If the voice is pitched too high, when 
excitement supervenes it will tend to break into a 
scream, while for low-keyed voices it is usually very 
difficult to rise out of a tedious monotony. The mid- 
dle voice gets all the advantage from chest-resonance, 
and at the same time has room to rise when emotion 
or occasion demands. The accomplished speaker should 
have full control over the pitch of his voice, and be 
able to modulate its key at will, so as to adapt it to all 
external circumstances. 

The increase of the compass of the voice is not so im- 
portant in elocutionary as in musical instruction. A 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 165 

judicious practice of the scale under the guidance of a 
skilful master will accomplish all that is necessary in 
this respect, and at the same time tend to improve the 
voice in flexibility and purity. 

But the most important thing to be considered in 
the culture of the voice is timbre and quality. All 
bodies and instruments employed for producing musi- 
cal sounds give forth, besides their fundamental tones, 
certain other tones due to higher orders of vibration. 
It is the intermixture of these with the fundamental 
tone which determines the quality of the sound, and dis- 
tinguishes instruments from each other — a clarionet 
from a flute (for example), both these from a violin, all 
of them from the human voice, and different voices 
from one another. These are the harmonics of the fun- 
damental tone — called by the German physicists tha 
harmonic overtones. Though feeble in comparison with 
the primary tone, they may, with a little practice and 
attention, be heard when, for instance, one of the lower 
notes is struck upon a pianoforte. Above every tone 
of a determined pitch may be traced a whole series of 
" harmonic overtones," rising according to the " acoustic 
series " before indicated — viz., first the octave, then the 
fifth, etc., etc. 

The timbre of a tone, as we have said, depends on 
the form of the waves of vibration. As the surface of 
water is moved into waves of a different form according 
to the object which agitates it — whether a falling stone, 
a ruffling wind, or a dividing keel — so the movements 
of the air take different shapes according to the way in 
which they are excited, whether by the violin-string 
under the rasp of the bow, the harp-string plucked by 
the finger, or the reed of the clarionet vibrated by the 
breath. These varieties are infinitely numerous, and 



166 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

are distinguished by the different relations which they 
cause between the fundamental tone and the overtones. 
The most beautiful timbre is found to result from that 
form of the vibratory waveswhich produces the primary 
and its harmonics in the intervals of the major cord to 
the sixth above, the former sounding most loudly, and 
the latter gradually decreasing. As the overtones in- 
crease in strength in relation to the fundamental tone, 
the sound grows shrill ; and if the higher overtones, 
which lie close together and are dissonant, overpower 
the fundamental, the quality of the sound becomes ex- 
ceedingly harsh and disagreeable. 

The timbre of the voice depends on the manner in 
which the tone begins, the management of the breath 
in producing it, the direction given to the column of 
air which carries it, and the disposition of the anterior 
cavities by which it is tuned for the various elements 
of speech. It has been found that the form of vibration 
most favorable to a pleasing as well as far-reaching 
quality of voice is a round form — i.e., one which sends 
the sound-waves out upon the air in such a way as to 
allow of their circulation in all directions with the least 
obstruction ; and that this form is best produced by a 
light, elastic impulse, like that made by the sudden fall 
of a pebble into the smooth surface of a lake — with the 
difference that sound spreads out in the air like a sphere, 
while the waves of water extend only in circles. This 
is to be accomplished, first, by a careful adjustment of 
the vocal organs, so as to allow just the quantity of 
breath to escape which is necessary for the production 
of the tone. If too little breath is'used, the vibrations 
will be feeble and the sound will lack strength ; if too 
much, the vibrations will be distorted from the form 
most favorable to an agreeable and effective quality. 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 167 

An excessive pressure of the breath drives the sound- 
waves forth in a single direction, instead of allowing 
them to expand, and the low harmonic overtones dis- 
appear, while the high dissonant overtones disagreeably 
assert themselves. Every particle of the column of air 
should vibrate, or of course it is lost to sound ; besides 
that, the escape of unvocalized along with the vibrating 
air makes itself manifest in a certain- wheezing very 
detrimental to the purity of the tone. The first impulse 
of the voice, then, should be sudden, light, and made 
with a moderate expenditure of breath, which may be 
afterwards reinforced. By this method the sound takes 
on a round and even form, which may be by due pre- 
cautions maintained and the timbre kept always at its 
best; while the same process is most favorable also to 
the reach of the sound, as it is well known that more 
speed and power can be generated by a quick, elastic 
blow than by the steadier pressure of a heavy force. 

Again, both theory and experience teach that, for 
purposes of purity in tone, the air-column from the 
larynx should be directed, both in speaking and sing- 
ing, to the front of the mouth, and concentrated there 
above the upper teeth, whence it should rebound to 
form continuous vibrations in the various resonance- 
apparatus behind. If this rebound takes place farther 
back from any portion of the roof of the mouth, it is 
found that the inharmonic overtones become promi- 
nent, and various discordant qualities result. And 
here it may be remarked that most of those well-known 
faults of voice — such as nasality, gutturality, huski- 
ness, thinness, strainedness, and excessive metallicity 
— which have usually been deemed organic and unal- 
terable, may be traced (with the exception of rare in- 
stances of structural defect) to some violation of natural 



168 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

law in the use of the vocal apparatus, and may by 
proper treatment be greatly modified, and often, espe- 
cially in the case of } 7 oung children, entirely obviated* 
Finally, the form given to the mouth-cavity, by which 
it is tuned for the elements of articulation, has not a 
little influence on the timbre of the voice. For, how- 
ever excellent the tone may be in its origin, the form of 
the vibrations-^on which, as we have seen, the quality 
depends — must be affected by the passages through 
which they proceed on their way to the lips. In the 
case of the vowels, and some of the consonants, the 
larger proportion of this air is employed in the genera- 
tion of a proper musical tone with its regular vibra- 
tions, while the remainder, encountering various obsta- 
cles in its passage, breaks into noise, with irregular vi- 
brations and dissonant overtones. With others of the 
consonants this proportion is reversed, and these de- 
rive their peculiar character from the predominance of 
noises, which cause the proper musical tones to become 
almost imperceptible. When both consonants and 
vowels are combined in syllables, the mouth is tuned 
and untuned for the vowel sounds with great rapidity, 
while the swiftly-succeeding movements of its mechan- 
ism form the consonants. As a general rule, and one 
of far wider application than might at first be supposed, 
these elements should be formed for forward in the 
mouth ; for when the necessary impulse is given farther 
back the sound is too tardy in striking the external air, 
and a dull and hollow quality is imparted to the voice. 
This is contrary to the practice of most teachers of elo- 
cution, who constantly inculcate the duty of producing 
the voice, as much as possible, from the throat and 
chest, under a mistaken notion that it will thus acquire 
strength and fulness. Care must also be taken to give 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 169 

room in the mouth-cavity for the proper formation of 
the vowel, or the air in the nasal fossas (which, in cor- 
rect speaking, is mostly shut off by the soft palate) will 
be moved to vibration, and a nasal quality will be the 
result. The more room given in the mouth for the 
vowel-sounds, the more will musical tones predominate, 
and the richer, fuller, and sweeter will be the utterance. 
So true and so important are these injunctions that it 
has been said that the quality of a healthy voice has its 
origin in the mouth-cavities rather than in the vocal 
cords, as is commonly supposed. 

Very careful and minute analyses of all the elements 
of speech, together with the various arrangement and 
movements of the organs in producing them, have been 
made by Helmholtz and others, but the subject can be 
barely indicated here. It is the office of the intelligent 
teacher, who would cultivate the human voice by meth- 
ods in accordance with nature, to acquant himself first 
with the physiology of the delicate and complicated 
instrument with which he assumes to deal, and then 
with the physical laws which are concerned in the pro- 
duction of the vocal sounds — the proper disposition of 
the vocal cords, and the management of the breath in 
originating and sustaining musical tones, the proper 
way of directing the air-column through the anterior 
passages, the right disposition of the mouth cavities 
that the quality of the tone may not be impaired by 
improper obstructions, and the due adjustment of the 
teeth, tongue, lips, and palate to a pure articulation. 
Possessed of this knowledge, with the added resources 
of his own experience, he will be able not only to im- 
part to the voices of his pupils those qualities of melody, 
reach, and resonance which enter into agreeable and 
effective speech, but to modify, and often completely 



170 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

remedy, vocal defects hitherto regarded as organic, and 
to treat successfully those ^widely- prevalent diseases 
which result from misuse of the sensitive vocal organs. 

One of the most wonderful and interesting results of 
the system here outlined may be seen in what it has 
accomplished for the instruction of deaf mutes. The 
occasional attempts hitherto made by these unfortu- 
nates to utter speaking sounds have resulted only in 
discordant tones, entirely uncontrollable in the essen- 
tial particulars of pitch and quality ; but by many years 
of minute investigation and unwearied experiment, as- 
sisted by an ingenious system of diacritic symbols, Prof. 
A. Graham Bell of Boston has been enabled to teach 
them not only to produce all the sounds of speech, but 
to appreciate and to modify the quality of their voices, 
to sustain or to vary the pitch, and, in short, to fulfil 
all the conditions of a correct and pleasing utterance. 
The symbolic system alluded to was invented by Prof. 
A. Melville Bell, a distinguished elocutionist formerly 
of London. It is called "visible speech," and consists 
of a series of signs which indicate by their form (de- 
pending for the vowels on the shape of the wind-pas- 
sages, and for the consonants on the disposition of the 
tongue and palate) the exact method by which all the 
sounds possible to human speech must be produced. 

III. With this cursory glance over the field of cul- 
ture as regards the mechanical laws which govern the 
voice, we come to a still briefer consideration of speech 
as the medium of expression, the vehicle of thought 
and emotion. If we view the vocal elements combined 
in syllables and words and sentences as constituting 
the/on?i of our art, we inquire now after the animating 
spirit which is to imbue that form with beauty and 
power. This influence is to be found, primarily and 






THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 171 

comprehensively, in the largest general culture — intel- 
lectual, aesthetic, moral. Cicero demanded for the ora- 
tor the most consummate and various wisdom, and 
Quintilian contended that he should be also a good 
man ; and even for the reader or the actor, who but em- 
bodies in his utterance the sentiments of another, it is 
clear that intelligence and sensibility to appreciate the 
language he employs is absolutely indispensable to the 
successful performance of his task. This psychological 
fitness makes itself immediately felt in an infinite va- 
riet}' of vocal inflections, some of them so minute as to 
defy analysis and almost to elude observation. These 
subtle phenomena the elementary writers, under the 
head of modulation, undertake to classify, and to for- 
mulate a system of rules by which they may be defi- 
nitely produced and regulated. Yet, notwithstanding 
the nearness of the subject to all human interests, it is 
not to be denied that the formal study of "elocution as a 
branch of education has never been popular except in 
ages and communities where mellifluous speech has 
been cultivated for its own sake — as an end rather than 
a means. There is a latent suspicion in the common 
mind that the fine subtleties of thought and emotion, 
and the innumerable varieties of vocal inflection which 
are the exponents of these, are incapable, from the 
nature of the case, of analysis and classification and 
mechanical production; that they must result from the 
intuitive agency of the intellect and the heart; and that 
without this spontaneous energy no artificial system is 
competent to create them. Hence, there is much talk, 
even among intelligent advocates of the widest culture 
in every other department of art, of leaving the whole 
matter of rhetorical delivery to the spontaneous sug- 
gestions of nature. 



172 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

This question may not be argued here : it is sufficient 
to say that there is truth on both sides of it. If the 
culture of delivery, according to the supposition of 
Archbishop Whately, the eminent formulator of the 
doctrine of laisse'z aller in this branch alone of rhetori- 
cal study, necessarily involved the careful attention of 
the speaker, while in the act of speaking, to rules of tone, 
emphasis, and inflection, the question would be an- 
swered in the statement of it. But the technique of this. 
r.s of all other arts, is to be taught and wrought into a 
habit, so that the learner comes to conform to its mi- 
nutest requirements automatically. The test of excel- 
lence in this art, more than in any other, is the cclare 
artem, and any disclosure by speaker or reader of his 
technical sub-processes is instantly fatal to success. 
On the other hand, it is not easy to see why this, more 
than any other art, should be as independent of techni- 
cal knowledge and skill. Notwithstanding the elabo- 
rate effort of the distinguished critic in question to show 
a difference between this and the art of composition, it 
appears to us that the analogy is complete, and that 
his objection holds equally good against the study of 
the numerous rules of grammar and rhetoric, which 
would doubtless prove mere impediments to the orator 
who should make conscious use of them in the pulpit 
or on the rostrum. 

But, after all, it must be aknowledged that there has 
been a tendency in elocution, as usually taught, to fix 
the exclusive attention of the pupil upon a prescribed 
set of modulations, too apt to become mechanical, and 
so to shut the avenues of his soul against that infinite 
variety of delicate suggestions which nature is wont to 
make to cultured sensibility, and which can never be 
reduced to system. What distinction of grave, or acute 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 173 

or circumflex, for example, can inspire the actor to 
the proper utterance of the Et tit, Brute? of the dying 
Caesar, adopted from Plutarch by Shakspeare ? Here is 
a single word, the just delivery of which all the systems 
of all the schools can never define. The rules that gov- 
ern its utterance are indeed the simplest possible, yet 
the indescribable modulation which should adequately 
convey its infinite pathos of grief and despair can be 
generated only in the sympathies of a cultivated mind 
and heart. From this we may at least infer that no 
analysis of the voice in delivery can ever be exhaustive, 
or be allowed to supersede a constant fresh application 
to the oracles of nature for inspiration to the best utter- 
ance. Perhaps, indeed, we should be all the more jeal- 
ous of systems when they claim to be exact and com- 
prehensive. 

Such, for example, are the attempts that have been 
made at different times, both in this country and in 
Europe, to define and regulate expression by intervals 
identical with those which exist in music, and to indi- 
cate the modulation by musical notation. One of the 
most eminent of these theorists was Dr. James Rush, of 
Philadelphia, who published about fifty years ago the 
Philosophy of the Human Voice, and who deserves re- 
spectful mention, not onty as an original and acute 
observer, and one of the first in this country to give 
impulse to the investigation of this subject, but for the 
many valuable contributions to the art of vocal culture 
which his work contains. This writer, having observed 
the diphthongal character of some of the vowels, gave 
the name of radical to the first, and of vanish to the 
latter of the two elements, and asserted that the voice 
spans the interval of a musical tone in passing from 
one to the other. From this he proceeded to construct 



174 MEL OD Y IN SPEECH. 

the theory that all the intervals of speech may be de- 
termined by musical analogies; and he elaborated a 
system by which all the variations of the voice, in 
every phase of expression, may be measured by the 
degrees of the musical scale and marked by a quasi- 
musical notation. It is impossible here to discuss, or 
even more fully describe, this theory. It was advanced 
before the more thorough investigations of modern sci- 
ence had better explained some of the imperfectly-ob- 
served facts on which it rests ; and probably its acute 
author, had he lived to our day, would have found 
reason to modify the tone of triumphant certainty with 
which it was introduced to the world. Its practical 
value may be estimated by the fact that not one of the 
notated phrases by which it is illustrated can be read 
by the musical symbols without first appealing to the 
independent action of the mind for a key ; and by the 
other fact, that of all the teachers who have professed 
to base their instruction upon the philosophy of Dr. 
Rush, not one (so far as we are aware) has ever made 
a serious and persistent attempt to carry this portion of 
it into practice. It is but just to add, however, that all 
through his rather voluminous work are scattered valu- 
able suggestions of a general nature, and that his analy- 
sis of the vocal elements has been found useful for the 
acquisition of a correct and forcible utterance. Among 
the most conspicuous of his professed followers were 
Dr. Barber and Prof. Russell, who were eminent teach- 
ers in their day. The former published a Grammar of 
Elocution, in which a brief and ineffectual attempt was 
made to carry out the musico-rhetorical theory, and the 
latter an admirable selection of passages of English lit- 
erature for purposes of voice-culture, entitled Ortho- 
phony, cr Vocal Culture, arranged according to Rushs 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 175 

classification of the different qualities and uses of the 
voice, and distinguished by the employment of his 
terminology. 

There is another system which is less open to the ob- 
jection of artificiality, and which appears to be founded 
on correct principles and to be susceptible of a wider 
application to the multitudinous phases of expression. 
It is that which derives the law of delivery from the 
structure of the sentence. This idea was first advanced 
by Walker in his Elements of Elocution, but its fuller de- 
velopment was reserved for Dr. Mandeville of Hamil- 
ton College, New York. This gentleman carried out 
the principles of modulation based upon sentential 
structure (not forgetting the special influence of em- 
phasis, of which he presents an acute and exhaustive 
discussion) through a very wide induction of sentences 
selected from English literature. This method of in- 
struction, in causing the arts of composition and de- 
livery to go hand in hand, restores elocution to its an- 
cient dignified alliance with rhetoric. It obviates, too, 
the tendency of the learner to subordinate natural to 
mechanical methods in the vocal expression of his 
.thought, by familiarizing him with the intellectual pro- 
cesses involved in its literary expression. 

The result of a survey of the whole field is a convic- 
tion that the popular prejudice against this branch of 
education is not entirely without show of reason. It is 
quite natural to feel more hopeful in entrusting our 
youth, in this matter, to the "sure instincts of genius " 
than to systems which cast them in rigid mannerisms 
professing to be founded on nature, but having only 
the effects of bad art, or to the guidance of instructors 
destitute of that liberal culture which alone can fit 
them to inspire a sense of the true and beautiful. Never- 



176 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

theless, there can be no greater fallacy than to suppose 
that by declining to submit them to a true artistic train- 
ing we but elect to leave them to the operation of that 
pure abstract beneficence which men fondly call u na- 
ture." Some one, pleading for the moral instruction of 
the children of the street, said," Do not suppose that if 
we refuse this responsibility they will simply go un- 
taught: if we do not teach them, you may be sure the 
devil will." So, in the matter of a right rhetorical de- 
livery, we may undervalue the importance of training 
Young America into good habits, but the influences 
which induce bad ones will none the less continue to 
swarm around him like the motes of the sunbeam, and 
he will take them in at every pore. Not nature, but 
false art, will be imbibed — by the child from the very 
family at home, by the youth from the very atmos- 
phere of the school-room, by the adolescent from the 
hoary abuses of the college and the still more abomi- 
nable traditions of the stage, and b}^ them all from 
nearly every pulpit, forum, and hustings in the land. 

The whole matter may be summed up in the well- 
worn maxim of Ovid: "The safest path lies midway of 
the extremes." The true doctrine is thus well ex- 
pressed by another: " To be able to act upon the souls 
of men with an elevating and informing power, it is 
first of all necessary that an artist should cultivate the 
form of his art to its greatest possible perfection, and 
have such perfect command of it that the practical ap- 
plication of it is as natural to him as to breathe. For, 
empty and dead as all technical knowledge is unless it 
is animated with a soul, yet no product of art aestheti- 
cally beautiful is possible without a perfect technique." 

The inquirer who desires to pursue this subject in 
detail may be commended to Helmholtz's Lehre von 



THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. 177 

den Tonempfindungen, Dr. Oscar Wolf's Sprache und Ohr, 
Carpenter's Human Physiology, and the writings of Max 
Miiller, Czermak, Du Bois Raymond, etc. For popular 
reading we may refer to Tyndall's Lectures on Sound; 
to Mme. Emma Seller's The Voice in Singing and The 
Voice in Speaking, which present the results of scientific 
investigation on the subject so far as practically valu- 
able to the ordinary student ; and to Dr. Mandeville's 
The Elements of Beading and Oratory. 



12 



REMINISCENCES OP PROF. RAYMOND'S 
TEACHING. 

BY R. W. RAYMOND. 

As remarked in the Editor's Introduction to this 
edition, and also explained by the author on p. 10, the 
preceding manual is confined to the department of 
"melody," which comprises, strictly considered, ques- 
tions of pitch alone. Emphasis, for instance, is here 
treated only as it is secured by inflection, and not in 
its relation to other means, such as pause, stress (loud- 
ness or softness of voice), facial expression, attitude or 
gesture. Miss Conant's notes, in Appendix L, supply 
many desultory but useful hints of my father's method 
in those departments of which he left no systematic 
record; and it has appeared to me that, imitating her 
example, I might, though more incoherently and less 
authoritatively, render desirable aid to the students 
and teachers who use this book. But I must give frank 
warning that, after the forty-seven years which have 
elapsed since I enjoyed my father's instruction, I can- 
not always clearly distinguish between his precepts 
and the resulting views, developed from them through 
my own experience. I can only say that I have hon- 
estly set down what I either received from him, or be- 
lieve to be the logical outcome of the principles in 
which he trained me. 

Apart from many later conversations with him, I 
gained my personal knowledge of my father's instruc- 
tion as a student under him at the Brooklyn Polytech- 
nic Institute, where his department comprised rhetoric 
(178) 



REMINISCENCES PROF. RAYMOND'S TEACHING. 179 

and composition, as well as elocution. But these are 
so intimately connected that I shall make no apology 
for including in my reminiscences some things which 
belong to both. 

The following paragraphs are, as will be seen, discon- 
nected remarks or apothegms, not even arranged in 
perfect systematic order. 



1. Correct reading is the proper basis of both oratori- 
cal and dramatic delivery, and should be so taught that 
the reader can convey the author's thought without the 
aid of gesture or stage-play. To convey not only the 
thought but the passion, or to indicate the persons as 
well as the thoughts, is the function of dramatic de- 
livery, and should not be attempted until the art of 
correct reading has been mastered. The stage, the plat- 
form and even the pulpit are afflicted with those who 
try to express or produce emotion, without having 
learned how, accurately and effectively, to convey ideas 
and propositions. 



2. The colloquial tones and inflections are the proper 
basis of all delivery, including the dramatic and the 
oratorical. The student should always begin by learn- 
ing how to render a given passage in ordinary collo- 
quial fashion. Upon that foundation, he - may then 
build the superstructure appropriate to higher moods 
and purposes. But, apart from the inflections employed 
also in colloquial utterance, the use, for emphasis or im- 
pressive effect, of stress, pause, or gesture, should not, 
in general, alter the underlying principles of colloquial 
utterance. The key may be changed to express emo- 
tion ; but the tune, expressing thought, must remain 



180 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

practically the same. There are exceptional instances 
in which ordinary rules are intentionally violated for 
dramatic effect. But these occur also in colloquial 
speech; and it is questionable, to say the least, whether 
they are, in any case, advisable. 



3. Ordinary delivery for the conveyance of thought, 
oratorical delivery for the declaration or production of 
a common sentiment, and dramatic delivery for the ex- 
pression of personality, scenery or action, are separate 
departments, and should not be confused without good 
reason. This is rather a warning than a rule. People 
of some temperaments or races talk dramatically on 
nearly all occasions ; orators may properly become dra- 
matic at times. There is no fixed rule ; but there is a 
principle, namely, sincerity. And the besetting danger 
of readers and speakers is that of the conventional af- 
fectation of a dramatic impulse which they do not, or 
under the circumstances should not, really feel. If, in 
the course of his argument, an orator uses the phrase 
"from East to West," he should not look, or wave an 
arm, alternately towards these points of the compass. 
Nobody cares at that moment where they are, or de- 
sires to have geographical considerations pictorially 
suggested in that way. 



4. It is impossible to give perfect effect in delivery to 
bad rhetoric. The importance of the relation between 
thought and utterance, my father used to say, cannot 
be overrated. Not only is clearness of thinking a pre- 
requisite of a good style, but clearness of style reacts 
upon the process of thought; and a vague, confused 



REMINISCENCES PROF. RAYMOND'S TEACHING. 181 

style almost unerringly indicates defective thinking. 
Apart from the mistakes of mere illiteracy, faults of 
style are almost always due to intellectual defects. 
Long, loose-hung sentences are produced by those who 
do not know when they have finished one proposition 
and begun another ; misplaced qualifying clauses ex- 
press belated after-thoughts ; sweeping and essentially 
meaningless epithets and adjectives are substituted for 
really descriptive terms by those who are too indolent 
to think precisely. 

There is even a moral quality involved. For there ex- 
ists a tacit contract between the author of a sentence 
and its reader and hearer, by virtue of which the for- 
mer covenants that the sentence contains a definite 
proposition, and that he knows what it is, when he be- 
gins to state it. The product, not the process, of his 
thinking is to be communicated. The extempore 
speaker, who flounders towards his close, clutching 
wildly after an appropriate cadence, may be pitied and 
forgiven, even though he has been guilty of a fraud in 
pretending to know, when he did not know, what he 
was going to say. But he who sets down in writing 
" what occurs to him," and to whom things do not 
tl occur " in the order which reason requires, and other 
minds can naturally follow, ought, for his own sake, 
and for the sake of the public, to recast his work. 

The best advice which can be given to readers and 
reciters with regard to such productions, is to let them 
alone. 

5. But some speeches and essays, otherwise effective, 
and even famous, often exhibit the moral fault of in- 
sincerity in the form of absurd illustrations or " mixed " 
figures. An author or speaker committing this rhetori- 



182 MEL OB Y IN SPEECH. 

cal blunder has usually been misled by an instinctive 
fondness for startling and intense epithets, not con- 
trolled by a sense of their meaning when brought to- 
gether in a professed picture. But, whatever his temp- 
tation, his use of a poetic or dramatic illustration im- 
plies a declaration that he see&what he thus calls up 
from his imagination for his reader or hearer to see 
with him. 

When an eminent statesman, complaining of sundry 
unjust criticisms, said upon the platform that he had 
been "gibbeted at the cross-roads of public reputation 
by every foul bird of passage," he invited his audience 
to see in fancy what he could not himself have seen, 
even in lunacy. And when one of the greatest of 
American orators evoked, in the Boston Music Hall, 
the applause of a vast, fascinated audience by saying, 
"The time will come in this land, when Liberty will 
stand by every new-born child, and drop in its cradle 
the school-house and the ballot-box!" he made his 
hearers, through the magic of his " silver voice," pre- 
tend to see what neither he nor they could possibly 
have seen. 

If such passages must be read or recited in public, 
let the unfortunate representative of the orator at least 
avoid the exhibition of their innate falshy by dramatic 
delivery of them. Let him not assume by any sign or 
hint to set forth the foul bird, or Liberty dropping things 
on a baby, or the result to the baby ! 



6. The rule that colloquial inflections are, in general, 
the basis of correct expression for all moods and pur- 
poses, must not be construed to justify the use of the 
ordinary colloquial key and manner, in the delivery of 



REMINISCENCES PROF. RAYMOND'S TEACHING. 183 

• 

passages of solemnity and importance. Colloquial in- 
flections are not necessarily trivial. A person just come 
from the death-bed of a friend, and telling of it at home, 
would speak colloquially, but with appropriate rever- 
ence. 

There is, however, one general difference between 
conversation and public oratory or didactic literature, 
which may require a certain modification of the rule. 
Namely, authors and orators are likely to use long sen- 
tences. Sometimes these sentences have no right to be 
so regarded, because they are composed of independent 
propositions, so that the reader is warranted in treating 
them as instances of erroneous punctuation, and deliv- 
ering their several parts separately. Often, however (as, 
for instance, in Macaulay's essays and speeches), a long 
compound sentence expresses effectively a single main 
proposition, and should be so treated in its delivery. 
Such cases often require the suppression of minor in- 
flections and emphases, or the use of "deferred empha- 
sis," for the purpose of distinguishing the main propo- 
sition from all the qualifications, conditions, characteri- 
zations and adornments with which it is surrounded by 
the subordinate clauses. Nothing is more destructive of 
the reader's or orator's proper purpose than the waste 
of his effective resources in attempts to bring out all the 
real or fancied shades of meaning or antithesis in such 
subordinate clauses, so that the main emphasis intended 
by the author is lost in a competitive confusion. If the 
author had attached great importance to these minor 
points, he would have put them into sentences of their 
own. The fact that he has subordinated them to a 
greater proposition warrants the reader in a similar 
treatment of them. 



184 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

• 

7. A certain method of delivery is required by hymns, 
some poetry, and some passages of Scripture. Dramatic 
verse, of course, should be dramatically rendered; and 
the narratives, dialogues, etc., ofLthe Bible may prop- 
erly receive such innections~~as would be used for any 
other similar passages of literature, — the reverence due 
to their source being, of course, maintained. But the 
appropriate delivery of verse, sacred or profane, involves 
something more than the ordinary inflections required 
to convey the thought. Poetry should never be so read 
as to seem to be prose. This is true even of blank verse, 
and of dramatic blank verse. No doubt, my father 
would have elaborated this branch of elocution under 
the head of" Rate and Rhythm." I can only say con- 
cerning his teaching of it, that he trained his pupils to 
avoid both extremes, — stage}', sing-song ranting on the 
one hand ; and utter disregard of the poetic form on the 
other. 

An interesting chapter in Dugald Stewart's famous 
Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind discusses 
the nature of the pleasure derived from verse, as com- 
pared with that which would be conferred b}' the same 
ideas, similes, etc., expressed in prose, and pronounces 
it to consist in the admiring recognition of the poet's 
apparent freedom and felicity of expression under the 
limitations imposed by meter, rhyme and poetic struc- 
ture. This pleasure is impaired, on the one hand, by 
any evidence of special effort or failure on the part of 
the author, resulting in inferior phraseology, elicited 
by the necessities of the form, and, on the other hand 
(in recitation), by such a suppression of the form as 
prevents the hearer from recognizing the poet's achieve- 
ment. 

Moreover, in the delivery of lyric or ritual poetry 



REMINISCENCES PROF. RAYMOND'S TEACHING. 185 

(e.g., the Psalms), the fact that the text was composed 
to be sung or chanted, warrants a rhythmic delivery, far 
removed, however, from the meaningless monotony of 
ecclesiastical " intonation," or the false inflections which 
sacrifice text to tune — and bad, artificial tune at that. 






8. With regard to oratorical gesture, I recall vividly 
a few of my father's maxims and views : 

a. In the natural position of the orator, speaking 
without manuscript or desk, the hands should hang at 
his sides, and not be in his pockets. It is hard for the 
beginner to learn to maintain this attitude with ease and 
grace ; but he must do so. 

b. Every gesture, whether of one arm or both, should 
have a beginning and an end, and the arms should re- 
turn to the natural position before another gesture be- 
gins. The raising of one arm to join the other, already 
in the air, and the continued suspension of both or 
either, after the gesture is finished (as if waiting for an- 
other opportunity of employment before going home), 
should be left to the operatic tenors. 

c. Every oratorical gesture should present a " statu- 
esque " position (or, to use one of my father's illustra- 
tions, a position in which a man would be willing to 
have his picture taken). Crouching, twisting, sawing 
the air, etc., are neither fitting nor helpful to the orator. 
Men of natural eloquence, like John B. Gough, have 
habitually used such attitudes; but (unless they did 
so in dramatic mimicry) they sacrificed, rather than 
gained, power thereby. 

d. Every oratorical gesture should have a meaning 
and purpose — usually of either emphasis or explana- 
tion. The line between oratorical and dramatic action 



186 MELODY IN SPEECH. 

is not clearly drawn. The orator may become, in illus- 
trative passages, dramatic ; or, without wholly passing 
into that mood, may employ semi-dramatic gestures, 
such as pointing to " yonder great city," or upward, to 
indicate " a higher Judge," or laying the hand upon 
the breast, when speaking of '"the inward monitor." 
These semi-dramatic gestures may, perhaps, be best 
distinguished from purely dramatic action by saying 
that they do not abandon the personality of the orator. 
Consequently, they should not be mimetic. As it is 
simply ridiculous to yell, in saying that somebody 
" cried to Heaven," or to rumble, in saying that " there 
came a burst of thunder-sound," so it is ridiculous to 
imitate by gesture the galloping of horses or the flight 
of birds, or the writhing of tortured martyrs, simply 
because such things are mentioned in an (oratorical) 
text. The normal attitude of the orator is that of nar- 
rative, argument, or appeal from a man to his fellow- 
men. Whether, or when, he is justified in abandoning 
that attitude, assuming another personality, and be- 
coming, so to speak, an actor, is a question of good 
taste, of the immediate circumstances, and of the effect 
sought. Undoubtedly, the transition must be sincere 
and appropriate. It is always dangerous, and not to be 
recklessly essayed by a beginner. Hence the intelli- 
gent teacher will strive to train his pupils primarily in 
such declamation as can do without dramatic aid, be- 
fore encouraging them in the use of such aid. 

e. To make no gestures or movements at all is better 
than to make meaningless, awkward or inapjjropriate 
ones. Such a motionless delivery is not, therefore, to be 
recommended. It is as proper as it should be easy, 
to accompany speech with suitable movements, suffi- 
ciently to assure the hearers of the speaker's interest, 



REMINISCENCES PROF. RAYMOND'S TEACHING. 187 

and to stimulate their own. But a gesture at the wrong 
time is like pushiug a swing at the wrong time : it does 
not help, but tends to stop, the motion in progress. 
Above all, the notion that a gesture should be made, 
whether or no, about once in so often, is the supreme 
absurdity. In an instance which actually occurred at 
an institution of deservedly high standing (and in 
which the instruction as to inflection had evidently 
been thorough and correct), each of a series of pupils 
in declamation divided his five minutes as follows : 



Central Position (after bowing), . 
New Position (after two steps to the right), 
Central Position resumed, .... 
New Position (after two steps to the left), . 
Central Position, for peroration, . 



Total, 



1 minute. 
1 " 
1 " 
1 
1 

5 minutes. 



And in each of these positions, at intervals of 20 sec- 
onds, this invariable series of gestures was repeated : 
right arm out ; left arm out ; both arms out ! A pho- 
nograph would be better than that ! 



9. My father was accustomed to speak of his friend 
and pastor, Henry Ward Beecher, as the most com- 
pletely accomplished and effective orator of his genera- 
tion. Mr. Beecher possessed the qualities of absolute 
sincerity, fervor, kindling imagination, power of intense, 
rapid thinking, and instant choice of words from a vast 
vocabulary, always available at command. He had also 
the advantages of a flexible voice of unusual range and 
remarkably sympathetic quality, and of great dramatic 
power. Probably no other public speaker of his time 
was so fully equipped with the means of effective ora- 



188 MELOD Y IN SPEECH. 

tory, apart from the message to be uttered through 
those means ; and it is notsurprising that his reported 
sermons and addresses, though still, in printed form, 
illuminating the intellects and stirring the hearts of 
thousands, are deemed by those who personally heard 
him, less thrilling and impressive than when they were 
first uttered. But, in my father's judgment, the most 
instructive feature of Mr. Beecher's supremacy was 
that, being generously endowed with genius, enthu- 
siasm and sympathetic power, he had perfected with 
infinite pains and patience the elements in which he 
was originally not thus eminent; had cured imperfec- 
tions of articulation ; learned under good teachers, 
and by long-continued practice, the art of elocution 
and the effective use of the voice ; and had gained by 
omniverous reading his abundant repertoire of words. 
Among his contemporaries, there were great orators 
whose innate power produced its effect in spite of de- 
fects in voice, inflection or gesture, which their hearers 
forgave. Mr. Beecher's supremacy, and the inspiring 
and encouraging example which it has left behind him, 
are due to the fact that he reinforced natural powers 
and gifts by patient study and ultimate mastery of all 
auxiliary means. When this had been accomplished, 
and years of practice had made of his training a 
" second nature," he employed unconsciously what he 
had so laboriously learned ; but nothing would be more 
erroneous, as nothing would be more disheartening to 
the student of oratory, than the inference that such per- 
fection is wholly innate, bestowed as a gift, without hard 
work on the part of the recipient, and that the ambition 
of acquiring such excellence is a hopeless one for any 
man not "born to it." 



